The government’s professed reliance on science to justify its response to the pandemic reveals both its overconfidence and its insecurities about getting citizens to cooperate
It is comforting to know that, in a time of great danger, the government is working with top scientists to do what is best for us. But the comfort is often false, for science can be used to make things seem more certain than they really are. And it can give an excuse to authorities that don’t want to listen to the governed.
This is a marked change from the government’s response to Aids, which was hostile to science. The contrast is more poignant because the public face of the scientific team is Salim Abdool Karim, a renowned epidemiologist whose work on Aids was rejected by the then government. Then, Karim was relegated to the margins. Now he is a celebrity. So, like governments elsewhere, South Africa is now “following the science”.
Its brand of science also reflects this mix. The Aids science was much clearer than that for Covid-19. There was medicine that could prevent people dying and it was much easier to control the spread. Covid-19 has no cure and scientists acknowledge that there is much they don’t know about it. But a “severe epidemic” is not every country’s experience. South Korea, Vietnam and New Zealand have all sharply curbed cases and deaths. In all three, new infections have dwindled to just about none. They may experience new waves, but so far they have avoided what we are told is inevitable.
The health minister, Zweli Mkhize, offered a more plausible version of the delay. Medical scientists’ models, he said, had the virus peaking in July, but with the lockdown it was hoped to delay it for five weeks so that it would not come in the flu season. This seemingly slight change managed to avoid both false claims of certainty and the view that nothing can be done.
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