The fourth wave of Omicron is about to be history and it has inflicted less pain that previous waves, much to our relief. The question now is where to from here. Has Covid-19 attained the status of being endemic — meaning we can treat it like other diseases that float around at controlled, predictable levels — which would make the national state of disaster unnecessary?
Experience shows that people were right to be sceptical about politicians taking on more powers to deal with an emergency situation. As a constitutional democracy, SA should be governed by laws put together by the people’s representatives in parliament and not be ruled by decrees from a National Coronavirus Command Council, a name that harks back to the Soviet era. We can therefore sympathise with the view that President Cyril Ramaphosa should simply let the state of disaster, which has to be renewed each month in terms of the Disaster Management Act, lapse on Saturday.
That creates another problem, though. In addition to the vaccination programme, with about 40% of adults having been fully jabbed, SA has used a number of non-pharmaceutical interventions such as mandating the wearing of masks in public and limiting the size of gatherings. Without a declaration of a national state of disaster such restrictions wouldn’t be possible.
Would we be risking the gains made so far if all of a sudden people can jump on a plane or do their shopping without wearing masks from Sunday? Health department deputy director-general Nicholas Crisp said that this would cause “chaos” and warns against acting as though Covid-19 is no longer with us or that Omicron will be the last variant.
It is true that South Africans are probably fatigued after living under one or other restriction since March 2020, with damage to the economy and disruptions to education and people’s ability socialise.
Those in favour of lifting the national state of disaster say that SA is no longer in a situation requiring such regulations. The Omicron variant has led to fewer hospital admissions and deaths. A high level of immunity in the population has been achieved through both prior infection and vaccination, which provides some protection for the elderly and those with compromised health.
That might be true, but it would be a mistake to listen to politicians instead of scientists on whether we have reached the level where we can relax.
The debate is not limited to SA. Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez has argued that the virus should be treated like other respiratory illnesses, such as flu, something that the World Health Organisation pushed back against, with its senior emergency officer for Europe saying the virus is still unpredictable.
Part of the reason is the unequal distribution of vaccines, with just 10% of Africans fully vaccinated. In the UK more than 53% of the population have received a third booster, In Australia — in a standoff with unvaccinated Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic — has fully vaccinated about 90% of the eligible population, those over 12 years of age.
Countries that have reached this rate of immunisation are in a position to experiment with lifting restrictions, reasonably confident that should cases rise this won’t be accompanied by unbearable pressure on the health system. But Omicron remains dangerous for those who are unvaccinated.
Vaccination rates in many African countries are dismal — barely 2% in Nigeria and less than 0.1% in the Democratic Republic of the Congo — it would be unwise to act as if the crisis is over. SA should focus its efforts on fighting vaccine disinformation and getting more jabs into arms, while continuing with global efforts to boost supply for poorer countries.
The state of disaster does go against our democratic instincts and we would like to see it removed as soon as possible, but we are not convinced that this is an immediate priority. Current restrictions are light and can be justified as necessary to help manage the pandemic, and most ordinary people won’t see them as too restrictive on their freedoms.
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