DA’s interim leader John Steenhuisen is calling for government to end the lockdown, saying the epidemiological models massively exaggerated the size of the COVID risk.
The DA leader’s call comes just a day after Health Minister Zweli Mkhize warned of a possible second wave of COVID-19.
Mkhize said the number of infections has been around 10,000 per week for about five weeks and there has been an increase in cases in the past two weeks.
Over 600,000 positive cases and over 17,000 deaths have been recorded.
Government declared a national state of disaster under Section 27(1) and Section 27(2) of the Disaster Management Act on 15 March 2020 in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
While the state of disaster was originally set to lapse on 15 June, the act provides that the state of disaster may be extended by the Cogta minister – by notice in the gazette – for one month at a time before it lapses.
The current extension will end on Thursday, 15 October.
However, Steenhuisen said the World Health Organisation has now echoed what the DA has been saying for months: ‘that lockdowns are net harmful and unjustifiable’.
“WHO has appealed to world leaders to stop locking down their countries and their economies,” said Steenhuisen.
“The state of disaster undermines democracy, oversight, and policy certainty. Extending it will be no more than a continuation of the government’s attempt to use bad science to promote a climate of fear that gives false legitimacy to the ANC’s growing authoritarianism.”
Steenhuisen said the real disaster was the state of our economy, which was already in an ‘ANC-induced’ crisis before the pandemic hit.
“But it was dealt a deathblow by the ANC’s irrational, unscientific, unethical lockdown with its senseless, arbitrary regulations ineffectively targeting a single risk, a risk which is nowhere near as dangerous to our country as many other risks,” he said.
“The WHO’s statement supports the DA’s position that this prolonged lockdown has been unjustifiable and that the economic devastation it caused could and should have been avoided.”
He said the main things South Africa’s lockdown has achieved is a catastrophic increase in poverty, unemployment and inequality, with poor people and young people paying the highest price for what has largely been an ineffective policy.
He said Level 1 lockdown continues to harm South Africa, saying over three millions jobs have already been lost.
“It continues to damage certain sectors of the economy, particularly tourism and the alcohol industry, and it continues to interrupt education, with no benefits to society. This charade must end now,” said Steenhuisen.
“The ANC government has brought SA to the precipice of economic ruin, to avoid a single risk which is small relative to the myriad other risks we as a nation faces. This government remains the biggest risk to the country’s wellbeing. Nothing which gives them more power should be supported.”
Specifically, the DA calls on government to:
- Lift all restrictions on international travel. The tourism industry is being unnecessarily damaged as a result of these.
- Lift all restrictions on the trade of alcohol.
- Lift the curfew, which is an unnecessary invasion of civil liberties including an unnecessary restriction of people’s freedom of movement.
- Allow schooling to return to normal operations.
(COMPILED BY INSIDE POLITICS STAFF)
