It is the people, reeling from loss and scrambling to survive, that the head of Nelson Mandela Bay’s disaster management and the head of the joint operations committee, Shane Brown, will remember most when he thinks back to the pandemic of 2020.

“I have been in disaster management for 30 years and never before was I called on to handle anything like this,” Brown said. “The scale of loss of lives, of livelihood, of experiences remains very big.”

“It has become a year of loss. Everywhere people lost so many things. Even in my own family my aunt turned 100 and had no party. My mom turned 80. So many school kids, especially those in Grade 12, have lost a year. There were no first-team rugby, cricket and soccer matches to celebrate. Many young people lost their dreams.

“So many people lost their livelihoods. I never realised how many people in our city were living from week to week.

“Today when I look back, the sense of loss in the city is greater than the pandemic,” he said.

According to the latest statistics issued by the Eastern Cape Department of Health, 21,952 people have tested positive for the virus in Nelson Mandela Bay. Of these, 20,626 have recovered and 871 have died.

Nelson Mandela Bay’s acting executive mayor, Councillor Thsonono Buyeye, this week called on residents “not to throw away their masks”.

The metro had a total of 486 Covid-19 active cases this week with all residential areas reporting fewer than 100 active cases.

“We are now calling on residents to not throw away their masks as the fight is far from over. The infections might be dropping, but the virus is still very much deadly,” he said.

Brown, a veteran of disaster management with 30 years’ experience said they had to learn very fast when the outbreak began.

“This pandemic tossed a few curveballs in our direction. We couldn’t do anything the way we used to. It became impossible to talk to stakeholders face to face. We were not set up to deal with anything. We had to find a service provider fast for virtual meetings. Our disaster plans only covered outbreaks, maybe a town or a suburb, but not a pandemic that will affect the whole world.

“This has been a very steep learning curve,” Brown said.

Brown said while they were taking a breather, now they were worried about a second wave of infections.

Nelson Mandela Bay fast became and for months remained a hotspot for infections in the province since the first case was registered in March.

“It was scary when we saw the sharp rise in infections — people were getting infected left, right and centre. We were in hard lockdown and the joint operations centre became like a railway centre,” Brown said. “People came to us to seek help. Many had emergency medical issues. Many had to find a way to leave the city because they lost their jobs. We had school children who had to get home and people who needed to get to sick family members,” Brown said.

“Things were happening so fast. We were just dealing with whatever was thrown our way. The infection peak came and went without us even noticing. I guess the question will always be if we overreacted or under-reacted. We had no manual telling us what to do. We were just learning as we went along.

“Now the metro is in steep decline, but a lot of bad things happened out there.

“We only had one third of our staff working during most of lockdown, but a lot of good things also happened. We could provide masks to those who didn’t have any,” Brown said.

“Especially in the beginning, funerals were really bad; there were people who were desperate to see their family and they couldn’t. People were dying in old age homes without anybody to say goodbye. It was harsh. It was tough on people that they could not socialise with family. We suddenly were instructed to distance ourselves from other people,” he said.

“We had one case of a person who spent 10 minutes with someone who tested positive for coronavirus and that person got ill. Another person drove all the way from Cape Town with a person who tested positive for coronavirus and they were fine.”

“We have heard of almost entire families being wiped out by this disease. People who attended birthday parties, got sick and then almost everybody including the one whose birthday it was, died.

“At one stage the police started giving out my cellphone number to people seeking help. It was incredibly hard. I used to get phone calls from people and I myself would be on my way home. They just had to leave town out of sheer desperation as they had nothing left. I would turn around and get them the right permits. I am hoping that they will pay forward the favour one day,” Brown said.

“Today we are still a bit shocked. We are sitting here in absolute wonder that we survived the crisis – but we fear a second wave,” he said. “We have to keep up with our social distancing, handwashing and wearing masks, but now people are exhausted and they have become a bit complacent,” he said.

“There is still some doubt about how many people we have lost. It is just my gut feeling, but the death toll is possibly way higher than what we were given. We only know of those who tested positive for Covid-19 and then died, but a large number of people passed away without ever being tested. People were dying before they could get to the hospital.

“In the beginning, funerals were a big struggle for us. It created hotspots of infections. Funerals are a big deal and an integral part of life. Everybody was welcome – and suddenly only 50 people could go and there had to be social distancing. “How do you go to a funeral and don’t hug someone?”

Brown said that with the co-operation of the funeral directors and the churches, they managed to address the problem.

“I think the biggest problem during the pandemic was the asymptomatic carriers of the virus. They had no symptoms and they probably didn’t know themselves that they had the coronavirus, but they created many hotspots – probably more than we even know.

Brown said that even after five months, he remained baffled about how the virus was spread.

“We had one case of a person who spent 10 minutes with someone who tested positive for coronavirus and that person got ill. Another person drove all the way from Cape Town with a person who tested positive for coronavirus and they were fine.”

He said he was concerned that access control, hand sanitising and other measures such as taking the temperatures of customers are seemingly slackening at big shopping centres and other places visited by many people. DM/MC