WE CAN’T FAIL TWICE

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This time, the partial lockdown should count for something. Lockdowns are meant to slow the rate of COVID-19 infections and buy government time to catch up with the virus, by carrying out mass testing and provide the necessary facilities and equipment needed to isolate and quarantine suspected and confirmed cases.

It would be an unforgivable waste of people’s jobs, businesses, schooling hours and the jet fuel to bring our fellow emaSwati back home if, at this second attempt, we fail to flatten the unrelenting ascending curve. Most critical now is mobilising a nation to adhere to the lockdown directives and this requires a well organised execution of the enhanced measures announced with the revised strategy.

COVID-19 is now lurking in our street corners, bus ranks, homes, offices, shopping centres, banks and even health facilities. The small size of our population can only mean it has spread much further than we have been able to detect it. The rising frequency of positive results from a small sample of tests at our recently acquired laboratory, gives an indication of just how far behind we are in determining the spread.

Therefore, Prime Minister Ambrose Dlamini and team had better triple the speed in rolling out the enhanced measures of scaling up screening, testing and ensuring a seamless provision of food parcels to the over 300 000 citizens who live from hand to mouth.

Most importantly, we have to provide our health workers with the requisite personal protective equipment (PPE) and addressing their grievances, while ensuring the nation has easy access to the face masks, ventilators and intensive care unit (ICU) beds. Not enough has been done to protect the businesses though. It is important to note, however, that while government is tripping and falling along the way as it tries to balance saving our lives and livelihoods, it is not government alone that will determine when this curve falls flat before a cure or vaccine is made available. Our behaviour from today will have a larger say on whether this takes weeks, months or years.

So let’s act like people who are determined to ensure we do not lose our country to a virus we can avoid through hygiene and distancing.  As we do so, we must accept though, that when the curve eventually flattens and the lockdowns end, life may never be what we’ve always been accustomed to.

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