South Africa as a country had their own lockdown measures to combat the spread of the Covid-19. The country’s president announced 5 levels of the lockdown which started on the 26th March and the ending date not known to anyone so far as they are in level 3 advanced meaning there are still 2 more levels to go and if things are not better they can even go back to level 4 or 5 or remain on level 3 and 2 for a long time.
On level 5 only essential services were provided meaning that all other sectors were closed fully. When all sectors were fully closed the government was trying to find ways to deal with the virus while learning more about it. After a few weeks they were able to put measures in place to stop the spread of the virus where essential workers were at test as they were only the ones allowed to have movement from home to their place of work.
During that period it was also discovered that the Covid-19 virus was not hthat harmful to children as they could not spread the virus from themselves to elders at home, that was according to studies conducted around the world but a number of children died of Covid-19 around the world meaning the studies conducted were not 100 percent accurate.
After careful consideration, President Ramaphosa shifted the lockdown to level 4 where a few other sectors were open under strict conditions. The reason was that the government wanted to see how the rate of infection would grow if they released a few more people to their work places. There were a number of people who criticized the move as they felt the government was more concerned about saving the economy than saving lives while others said the government was forgetting the economy and concentrating too much on saving lives and not saving jobs.
Level 3 was introduced in June 2020 where almost all sectors opened for business due to the fact that the economy was sinking very fast as some of the companies have already closed down by then and a lot of jobs were lost by the time. A lot of people were living under a lot of stress during this time as they had no source of income whereas millions did not have food in their homes.
After another careful consideration, level 3 advanced was introduced where all sectors were opened except those who were categorized as health hazards. The tobacco industry and a few more remain closed during level 3 advanced which means the employees of those sectors could also loose their jobs as there is no source of income for those sectors. A court debacle is going on to reopen all sectors in the country as they feel they deserve to also be part of redeveloping the economy of the country while the ministry of health says no.
