The Covid-19 pandemic is threatening previously cushioned sections of society with what poor and working class individuals and households have always lived through: struggle to access food, quality education and adequate healthcare.

The following are allowed to operate under the current Level 4 lockdown if they observe social distancing and other safety protocols: public transport, food retail, spaza shops (tuck shops/kiosks), car washes, construction firms, craft vendors, food vendors, stationery shops, car dealerships, warehousing, breakdown services, agents and consultants, photographic studios, workshop and repairs, cleaning services and dry cleaners, manufacturers, driving schools, hawkers and furniture shops.

One of the many class dimensions of the current crisis is that workers, many of whom live in overcrowded shacks in townships and are therefore unable to either social distance or regularly wash their hands, have to further expose themselves to the risk of Covid-19 infection as they meet the needs of suburban South Africa where the globally mobile middle and upper classes go to shop while they observe social distancing, isolate themselves and continue to work and earn incomes remotely.

Such workers serve middle and upper classes who have adequate healthcare through private insurance companies.

The divide between a well-funded private healthcare system serving less than 20% of the population and an overburdened and underfunded public healthcare system catering for the vast majority of the working class and the poor is one of the major fault lines of South African society.

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