ANALYSIS| High Expectations As Ramaphosa Prepares To Deliver State Of The Nation Amid COVID-19, Deepening Economic Crisis

THEBE MABANGA

PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa delivers his fifth State of the Nation address (SONA) on Thursday night to an anxious and frazzled nation, battered by a worst economic and health crisis in history, and the worst since the Spanish Flu of 1918.

Beyond outlining government’s plans for the year ahead, Ramaphosa needs to soothe ruptured nerves and give assurance that he is in total control of the health and economic crisis.

It does not help that the address takes place in a week when government appears to have mishandled a critical part of its response to COVID-19 pandemic: the rollout of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine from India.

The government’s explanation that the vaccine from India has been found to be less effective against South African variant of the virus leaves much to be desired.

This begs the question: if the variant was discovered at the beginning of November and now accounts