COVID-19: (South Africa) – 2022/06/24

Obviously, the most important news in South Africa regarding COVID-19, is the repealing of all regulations enforced due to COVID-19, including the wearing of masks as well as the restrictions on numbers for public gatherings. My personal view is that the time was ripe for this announcement to be made. However, anyone who still prefers to wear a mask in public has my full support. I have decided that, for the time being, I will still comply with what I consider to be common sense. I’ve just returned from our local shopping centre and was quite surprised to see how many people are continuing to wear masks. While there, a lady tapped me on the shoulder and asked me (as though I am totally ignorant of what is happening in the world) whether I had heard that we were no longer required to wear masks. So I told her that I had heard, but that I’m not sure whether the virus had heard that it no longer has the right to infect us. She turned away from me in disgust. I wonder what she’s going to tell her husband this evening.

Two respected friends of mine posted their views on Facebook yesterday, which I am taking the liberty of copying here. The first one is from the South African futurist, Graeme Codrington:

“South Africa has removed the Covid mask mandate.

I hate to be the person asking you to check out global Covid infection statistics before you celebrate too hard – but maybe you should. Around the world, countries that removed mask mandates are seeing an upswing in Covid infections and hospitalisations, and some of them are moving towards imposing restrictions again.

We should not live in fear. We should not live behind masks forever. But… we should also not think that Covid is harmless. Or that it has gone away. We are now learning to live WITH Covid.

If you get Covid, you need to stay at home, not infect other people and you might get sick enough to disrupt your life for a few weeks. If you get Long Covid, you might have your life disrupted for years to come. We still don’t want to get Covid.

So, make sure you’re vaccinated. Keep up the hygiene standards we’ve become used to during the past two years. Without succumbing to fear just be alert to potential ‘super spreader’ situations. Mask up where appropriate if that helps (and don’t judge people who do so). And if you think you might have Covid, do the right thing and stay home.”

The second one comes from my friend, Lyn Van Rooyen:

“I join in the celebrations and joy about a maskless South Africa!

I am just as happy to be able to see smiles again and not to always think about where my mask is.

But I am not in a hurry to burn or throw my mask away.

In future I will wear a mask whenever I have a cold, flu, or other respiratory disease, to protect those around me.

This is just common sense and something we should have done long ago.

I will not stop the habit of more regularly washing and sanitising my hands.

This is just common sense and something we should have done long ago.

I will not stop going for booster immunisations for COVID, flu or any other immunisations that can protect me and those around me.

This is just common sense.

And the lifting of the restrictions is not “a victory for human rights and freedom”, “the government coming to their senses”, “group xx or yy that finally won against an oppressive government” or anything else.

This is just common sense and something a government does at a specific time in an epidemic.

And if and when government or my common sense suggests that masks are necessary again for COVID-19 or any other epidemic, I will wear them again.

Let us never forget the cost of this pandemic, let us never forget the lives, the economic cost, the pain and isolation.

Let us never forget that this was not the first pandemic, and it will not be the last.

I will not be getting rid of my masks.”

In the UK, where cases have risen by 30% within a week, it is said that many people are mistaking COVID for hay fever, as the initial symptoms are much alike. You can read the article here: https://www.mirror.co.uk/…/people-mistaking-covid…

In the US, a report has been released, “detailing the Trump administration’s support for herd immunity, which the subcommittee argued may have played a part in high rates of preventable deaths in the fall and winter of 2021”. You can read the news report here: https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/99406?xid=nl_mpt_DHE_2022-06-23&eun=g1759597d0r&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Headlines%20Evening%202022-06-23&utm_term=NL_Daily_DHE_dual-gmail-definition