Prof Abdool Karim gave the vital metric needed to come up with a flexible, quick-to-react model to open SA’s economy, writes John Steenhuisn
Prof Abdool Karim gave the vital metric needed to come up with a flexible, quick-to-react model to open SA’s economyPolice patrol the street during clashes with residents of Tafelsig, in Mitchells Plain, Cape Town. Picture: RODGER BOSCH / AFP
It is a challenge the DA has met head on. Our suggestion for a “smart lockdown” approach answers Karim’s call by proposing a model that offers us the flexibility to adapt to changing data by moving us between four different stages of lockdown as the epidemic develops, in a way similar to the different levels of load-shedding that many of us are used to. In this way, we can not only continue to save lives by containing the outbreak, but also ensure the revival of our ailing economy.
Importantly, if the rate of transmission increases again, the smart lockdown enables us to move back to a stage three or four harder lockdown. Throughout all four stages, wearing face masks and strict social-distancing in public spaces will remain compulsory, and the lockdown will only be completely lifted once the disease has been completely defeated.
If there are, on average, more than 90 new, self-reported cases per day during a full week, he recommends that we continue the hard lockdown. If cases grow by between 45 and 89 per day, and community healthcare workers, through active screening, find that less than 0.1% of the screened population is infected, he recommends easing the lockdown, in all likelihood to stage three under the smart lockdown model.
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