During South Africa’s 21-day lockdown we have started to see worrying scenes of police and army officers beating and harassing citizens in the streets. For some, this is reminiscent of the days of the State of Emergency under the apartheid regime. The difference today is that this is a “stay at home” curfew implemented as a drastic health measure in the face of a global pandemic.

The lockdown is intended to help and protect us. However, there is broad non-compliance with the lockdown regulations in townships.

Township communities do not trust the state, police or military enough to be persuaded that the lockdown is for their own benefit. The increasing use of brute force by the army and police will not succeed in this context.

For the lockdown to work, it needs to be implemented with belief, commitment and engagement by the vast majority of the people. This includes people from informal settlements to middle-class suburbs, from the rural villages to corporate offices.

A lockdown needs an extraordinary level of trust, communication and clear messaging.

What is our role as civil society leaders and activists in this time?

We should try to build understanding, trust and collective commitment to the lockdown by using the full extent of our leadership, influence and networks to spread progressive, context-appropriate public health messaging.

At the same time, our role is to highlight the contradictions and inequities unmasked by the pandemic and campaign for the protection of the unemployed, working people and vulnerable groups from an explosion of disaster capitalism, which will seek to exploit the crisis for profiteering.

Our other role should be to make the lockdown rules feasible, tangible and practical, particularly for millions of South Africans who live in overcrowded townships and informal settlements.

Without acknowledgement of how vastly different lockdown is in these communities to how it is in the suburbs, we can only expect resistance and non-adherence. We need to address a deep sense of cynicism people have when hearing about isolation and physical distancing.

The cynicism is understandable. It is difficult to stay at home when you are living in a one-bedroom shack and sharing a tiny living and sleeping space with others.

Only by empowering communities with information about why the lockdown is necessary — and how it can be done in their own circumstances — can we expect mass endorsement and promotion of these restrictions.

How we can do physical distancing in SA

As the People’s Health Movement of South Africa (PHMSA), we believe that part of the uncertainty about lockdown and physical distancing is the impossibility of keeping distance from other people when living in small, crowded spaces.

We therefore need to clarify that physical distancing is avoiding physical contact with people who are not in your household or family. And “household” and “family” is varied in South Africa, with many people not living in nuclear families or the household demographic often changing due to migrant labour, different definitions of what constitutes a family, shared accommodation and sub-letting.

Each of us needs to define who and where our “household” is for this time of lockdown and physical distancing. We suggest that it is the people you usually live in close proximity to, in the same dwelling, and share meals and sleeping areas with.

During lockdown, these become the people with whom you remain close. We can continue to eat meals together, lift our children onto laps, hold and hug our close and loved ones.

What we cannot do is extend this level of physical contact to people outside our household. This means mostly staying indoors or having outside time in an area that is part of your house and not a public space.

“Outside time” will mean different things to different people.

For middle-class people, it might mean you stay in your house and can sit or walk in your garden; for people living in smaller homes in townships and dense urban areas, it might mean identifying the few metres outside your home (fenced or not) that you mark as the outside space of your household.

For those in flats it might mean identifying clear boundaries between households on balconies and remaining at a distance from other household members; or drawing up a roster and taking turns to use a shared courtyard or garden.

What is vitally important is not to have physical interaction with people outside of your household.

This means no visiting neighbours, no checking in on a cousin in a nearby township and no stopping in groups to chat when out shopping for essential items.

What about going out for necessary supplies?

Once we have settled in our households, we should not venture out unless there is an emergency. One person from the household should be chosen to get food and essential supplies, but that should be done as infrequently as possible. We should aim for once a week or less — as each time someone leaves the home they risk bringing the virus back.

When it is necessary to make the trip to purchase essential groceries, medication or to attend a health facility for medication, the appointed person should take great care to protect those back at home. This can be done by not interacting closely with other people (keep a distance of 1.5 metres from everyone), washing hands at every opportunity, not touching the face and using the sanitiser provided at public spaces.

On returning home, it is essential to wash hands thoroughly before touching anyone else and, if possible, changing clothes outside and washing.

If these precautions are taken, once home we should again feel free to be close to people in the households.

We all need contact at this time, to hug each other and take care of each other.

 How we can do isolation in SA

 PHMSA supports the recent presidential announcement on rolling out mass testing, contact tracing and isolation. However, for many South Africans, self-isolation in a separate room with separate bathroom facilities and maintaining a three-metre recommended distance is simply impossible.

It is critical that the government provides adequate, safe and well-provisioned accommodation with separate bathroom facilities and availability of necessary food and supplies for people in isolation circumstances. We should consider these places “health sanctuaries”, where people can recover from the virus, decrease the risk of spread and protect families and loved ones.

Our cities have ample accommodation for the establishment of these sanctuaries, including currently empty conference centres, hotels and student hostels.

There is sufficient goodwill and solidarity in our society for us to prepare such unused spaces for dignified accommodation of people who need to be apart from their loved ones.

In the UK, people over 70 have been asked to isolate at home as they are at high risk of severe effects from Covid-19 infection. While this is largely not feasible in South Africa, we should also consider making available virus-free sanctuaries for the elderly or those with significant medical conditions who live in crowded living conditions.

As activists and civil society leaders, we should lead in our individual communities to make lockdown liveable for others.

This could mean identifying community members who need assistance, such as the elderly who need help with groceries or those with illnesses who need medication or to visit clinics. Help should be provided using virtual communication where possible and maintaining a safe physical distance at all times.

Army and police should bring a spirit of support

The lockdown assumes that state emergency services will do everything, but they cannot possibly achieve this.

The state needs civil society to assist and known community leaders — social, sporting, political and religious — should be recognised and brought into response teams for implementation and assistance. South Africa has a rich tradition of grassroots mobilisation that can be tapped into.

There are many well-intentioned youth and other leaders who could play a positive role if supported and shown how to be safe in their actions.

We call on the army and police to bring a spirit of support and service to their necessary duty of promoting compliance with lockdown restrictions. Importantly, lockdown implementation by the state must come together with the provision of food, water and health assistance.

The role of the army and police should be to support and partner with community leaders while maintaining a visible presence — as opposed to using fear and intimidation. This approach will help build the trust and understanding that will be needed in the weeks and months ahead. MC

Cairncross and Gillespie are both members of the People’s Health Movement, South Africa.

This article was first published in Spotlight – health journalism in the public interest.