The moral – and political – dilemma facing him is: at what point do you resign yourself to suffering now, in the short term, in order to lessen that grief later on?
Once the hysteria from the suburban prisoners has died down a bit and once the Covid-19 deaths start spiralling , perhaps the Ramaphosa-bashers might pause for thought. His address to the nation on Wednesday night was deeply disappointing to many people, because it seemingly said little and came nowhere near the dream of many that the lockdown restrictions would be moved from Level 4 to Level 3. The reality was that President Cyril Ramaphosa would have taken flak, whatever he said.
The reality was that President Cyril Ramaphosa would have taken flak, whatever he said. And, the other sad truth is that he really doesn’t have many options in front of him. Gross domestic product could plunge by 10% or more; government itself predicts a worst-case scenario of seven million unemployed and one in two South African workers being on the streets; and companies left, right and centre are either closing permanently, or have applied to retrench their employees.
Yet, Ramaphosa will have known that, whatever the models or predictions are, SA is a long way from seeing the worst of the crisis. And when that wave of infections hits, hospitals are still going to be in danger of being swamped, even though much has been done during lockdown to increase their capacity.
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