President Cyril Ramaphosa gave weary and irritable South Africans something to look forward to when, on Sunday evening, he announced that the country will move to Level 3 of the lockdown on 1 June – but, as always, the devil is bound to lurk in the detail.
He has given six addresses to the nation since the state of national disaster was announced on 15 March, and where South Africans were broadly united in their support for the president and his government's swift action more than two months ago, the national mood has become increasingly frayed as the lockdown began to bite.
And tension between some scientists on the Ministerial Advisory Committee (MAC) – a body of 51 eminent scientists advising the Minister of Health Zweli Mkhize – came to a head over the last seven days, with Professors Glenda Gray, Francois Venter and Shabir Mahdi, among others, criticising the government’s approach to scientific advice.
Ramaphosa explained the extent of the public health response and again, like in the past, reiterated the real fear that the full impact of the virus has yet to breach our defences.
A broken public health system, a depleted national fiscus, a misfiring public service and a weak economy did not give Ramaphosa the armoury with which to tackle a global pandemic of uncertain scope and impact.
