This week South Africa moved to lockdown Level 2, which saw a new segment of industries in the economy reopen. The alcohol industry has resumed, cigarettes are once again available, and the fitness industry has opened its doors. However, there is still immense strain on the events, entertainment and arts industry which is largely restricted from being able to operate.

South Africa had one of the harshest lockdowns globally. It has resulted in damaging and lasting economic effects. You do not need to travel far from your home to witness the impact it has had on society. There are shops shuttered and restaurants which have closed down across the country. Levels of unemployment are increasing and companies both big and small have been forced to consider retrenchments or place their employees on reduced salaries.

In all of this there is a critical need to continuously ask the question, was it worth it? The answer to this cannot be subjective or informed by your personal perceptions or experience of the pandemic. It should be quantifiable and simple to evaluate. We must be able to determine whether the expected benefits from this policy action have, in fact, far outweighed the costs that have been incurred. The expected targets and deliverables should have been clear from the start.

Unfortunately, we have operated in a space where goalposts have been repeatedly adjusted, predicted death rates have been re-modelled multiple times, and the state largely became preoccupied with enforcing arbitrary and nonsensical lockdown rules.

The global debate on responses to Covid-19 is likely going to be characterised by interrogating two different policy approaches.

The first is that of a hard lockdown and economic shutdown policy which saw businesses closed, restrictions on all forms of activity, people locked in their homes and numerous controls implemented.

The second would be the non-implementation of hard lockdown measures and instead, the wide-scale adoption of particular control measures, namely physical distancing, good hygiene, the wearing of masks and the limiting of numbers for group events. Essentially it will be a battle of deliberating on which of these approaches provided the most acceptable outcome.

The challenge facing South Africa is that no matter what happens, you can expect that the government will claim victory. This is a deeply pessimistic approach to viewing the state, but it is important to adopt this understanding as a default position because it will protect you from a false sense of victory. 

Despite the impact of the lockdown on the economy, you can rest assured that the government will focus its efforts on attempting to convince you that it was all worth it. No government that has implemented a lockdown is going to publicly state that they wasted the opportunity, that it made minimal impact on the spread of the virus, or an even more compromising position, namely that it might not have been the best approach in the first place.

The stakes are high around the world both politically and professionally. New Zealand, for example, has been heralded as a lockdown success story after witnessing 100 days without any coronavirus cases until mid-August. It is an approach that has been staunchly defended by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. 

Sweden, of course, has also suffered under the virus and has one of the highest death rates in the world, but health officials in the country have been introspective on this in stating that they didn’t do enough to prevent deaths in elderly care homes. Despite these numbers, they have continued to stand by their country’s approach. 

In the US, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has said he believes the current toll of 170,000 deaths is a “success story” and that the Trump administration has done a good job in keeping it so low. Trump himself has hailed his government’s response. 

In the UK, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has called his government’s handling of the crisis “a massive success” after the number of fatalities dropped. This was despite the fact that the UK had the highest excess death rate of any country in Europe. 

In South Africa, President Cyril Ramaphosa has praised the country’s lockdown, stating that it prevented health systems in the country from being overwhelmed and has saved lives.

Of course, across the world, presidents and their respective governments are defending their approaches to the handling of Covid-19 through the implementation of lockdowns. They really don’t have a choice. This means it is critical that, as individuals, we interrogate this thoroughly and arm ourselves with enough information to evaluate the validity of their statements.

The world and the scientific community should be grateful that in Sweden we have a country which, from the very start, has been open about not implementing a lockdown. Despite facing criticism, the country’s health chiefs have stood by their controversial decision to not quarantine the population, restrict business activity or attempt to shut down the economy.

Sweden, of course, has also suffered under the virus and has one of the highest death rates in the world, but health officials in the country have been introspective on this in stating that they didn’t do enough to prevent deaths in elderly care homes. Despite these numbers, they have continued to stand by their country’s approach. 

Sweden has done the world a great service in choosing a different approach which can be compared globally. This has also come in the wake of multiple attempts to discredit the Swedish model; to paint it as irresponsible and dangerous. This you might expect, particularly from individuals or organisations who have likely staked their professional reputations on defending lockdowns.

As the world moves through the Covid-19 pandemic, it will likely provide a wealth of historical data to truly evaluate the policy approaches that were deployed to manage the spread of the virus. Hindsight, as they say, is an exact science. While everything in hindsight might become clearer, it will be important to ensure that, to some extent, this must provide us with enough foresight to plan into the future.

However, it must be emphasised that citizens globally should expect that no matter what happens, their government will always claim success. This is why it is vital that these policy interventions are critically interrogated and evaluated. 

Failure to do this would be a dangerous misstep when it comes to ensuring that we adequately prepare for the next pandemic. DM