The Covid-19 pandemic hit South Africa relatively quickly. Despite some warnings that this could happen, there was not enough time to think through all of the questions that it would throw at us.

No one foresaw that the schools debate could get so complicated or that the cigarette ban would become one of the biggest talking points of the moment. With that little bit of hindsight we now have, we can examine what worked and what didn’t, and look at what could be improved.

Now is the moment to draw breath, and to consider what lessons – if any –  have been learnt.

Two big issues stand out.

The first is, whether it is right to treat the entire country in the same manner during a pandemic.

At the beginning, President Cyril Ramaphosa said there would be a “differentiated” approach, and that as the virus surged in different places, they would be treated in different ways. But that did not happen and the lockdown has been implemented in a uniform manner across the country.

This is despite the fact that as of Tuesday 18 August Gauteng had recorded 200,949 confirmed cases with 3,018 deaths and 166,143 recoveries, while Northern Cape had recorded 8,129 confirmed cases with 100 deaths and 4,757 recoveries.

Some hard thinking may be required here.

In Northern Cape, just in the period between Christmas and New Year 2019, 49 people died on the roads, but no one is seriously suggesting cancelling the festive season in that province this year.

Yet, unemployment in the province will now be significantly higher, and children will be significantly disadvantaged because they suffered under the same lockdown conditions as did other places with much higher numbers.

This is a complex and possibly emotional argument, riddled with further questions:

• Would it be right from an equality point of view to treat different places in different ways?
• How could a democratic government justify the educational inequality that a differentiated approach would entrench?
• How could it justify keeping schools closed in areas with virtually no cases?

Well-meaning people could well have wildly differing views on the subject. And whether you live in Northern Cape or Gauteng could also influence your view.

And yet, it would appear irrational to insist that the lives of people in Northern Cape should be affected so badly because of the situation in Gauteng or Western Cape.

Should the aim of the government be to protect as many lives, and to improve as many lives as possible, while knowing it cannot do this for the entire country?

This could be the right moment to start a sober conversation, while emotions on the subject are cooling down somewhat.

There is another sharp lesson that could be learnt from this time.

During the lockdown there was a growing lack of trust between business and government.

Often, people representing industries like restaurants or alcohol would talk about their discussions with the government, and sometimes even praise the “leadership” of the minister concerned. But they were sometimes unable to mask their frustration. The problem for some is that the government did not necessarily consult in good faith.

The second ban on the sale of alcohol (Ramaphosa called it a “suspension”) cost people working in a legal industry millions of rand, and many jobs. There was no warning that it was coming, and on the Sunday that the ban was announced – with immediate effect – trucks were still on the road transporting liquor.

The CEO of the Restaurant Association of SA, Wendy Alberts, complained on SAfm this week that the government had failed to properly consult them.

“There’s never been clear communication from government,” she said. “When the onus is on us, they’re very quick to issue regulations, but when it’s in our favour, there are always these consistent delays. This one time it took nearly 10 days or a week to get those protocols out.

“If government had just engaged in a much more functional way with the industry, we could have saved a lot more businesses and a lot more jobs.”

This is a fairly damning indictment: it suggests that jobs were lost not because of the virus and the lockdown, but because of the government’s management of the lockdown.

The government used the power that it has to regulate and control restaurants to act in an unfair manner, leaving them with no legal recourse other than the courts.

This was the course taken by the tobacco industry, setting up an adversarial relationship with the government.

So now, when government and business need to work together, with organised labour, on an agreement to help the economy recover, there is the potential for ill-feeling in the relationship.

The way around this might be to agree on mechanisms to decide what happens in industries in certain places in certain sets of circumstances, so that there would be indicators ahead of time that industry would be locked down. So, for example, if the number of new cases increases by a certain percentage in a certain metro, taverns would know that there was a strong chance they could be locked down. This would allow businesses to plan ahead and minimise their losses.

It would reduce the scope for ill-feeling, and would also, crucially, force predictable and rational decision-making on the government, and make it impossible for speculation about other agendas to run riot, as it did with the ban on tobacco.

The conversation around what lessons we have learnt is just beginning. It will be long and complicated, and sometimes acrimonious. But we should take this moment to start that conversation, so that better decisions are made in the future, and any future lockdowns are managed more effectively. DM