Another superb thread from @SongezoZibi - poignant, powerful and as usual fiercely forthright. It’s messages need to be heeded by everyone, everywhere. https://twitter.com/songezozibi/status/1342903117898248198

Although in one sense, as he says, the main damage is done - baked into the system already, and poised to be spread even further and wider. New restrictions are now inevitable and necessary.

Should the government have done more or differently? Cancelling Christmas, with all the socializing and cross-country travel, would have been politically and culturally very difficult. But it was already clear that there was resurgence of the #coronavirus...

...and so government took a calculated gamble that people would act responsibly. Not enough have, it would seem. And now everyone will bear the consequences.

I don’t think government position was unreasonable, but I look forward to the views of others including @SongezoZibi In the end, there is a limit to what the government can do to modify social conduct without the heavy hand of hard lockdown.

The problem is that you can’t have it both ways: want government to stay out of your life and not curtail freedom, but then behave carelessly towards others in relation to the risk that #Covid19SA poses.

Could @CyrilRamaphosa have been any clearer about this in his messaging last time he addressed the nation? I don’t think so. Now he and his colleagues face governance choices as excruciatingly difficult as they were earlier in the year.

With the uptick in economic activity in the last few months, @GovernmentZA will not want to halt the momentum. But the rate of virus transmission and illness now poses again a much wider social and economic risk that requires an urgent regulatory response.

What? A ‘circuit break’ hard lockdown for two weeks at the start of the year? Banning social gatherings of more than say 6? Closing bars and pubs etc for a month? Which are the best lessons to be learned from what has been effective elsewhere in the world?

And I join @SongezoZibi in saying ‘voetsek’ to all the dumb-as-fuck COVID deniers and libertarians out there, especially those who care more about beaches and profits than people. Six bedridden days into my own bout of #COVID19 I can assure them that this is ‘not just a flu’...

...which is why with excruciating back pain that prevents sleep I am up in the middle of the night writing this thread...

...mine contracted from a young family member who took an understandable but unnecessary risk. As @SongezoZibi says: it is everywhere and we all have responsibilities to others. It is serious; too many people are dying or suffering; society needs to change its behavior now.