EDITORIAL: Mitigate Covid with productive measures
We are reliably informed that plans are afoot to tighten Covid-19 regulations in the coming days, as the country undergoes its most deadly spell of the dreadful virus.
Some in positions of authority are even contemplating another lockdown regime, citing how similar action helped contain the spread last year.
What these leaders are not thinking about is the devastating damage the lockdowns – which, in principle, were necessary – inflicted onto the nation.
The country was limping towards recovery but the current deadly third wave has thrown us off the rails again, taking us a dozen steps back.
As government ponders on its next steps, we caution against radical lockdown measures that would eat away what is left of our economy and completely bury the rest of us in a mass grave of starvation and joblessness.
One of the super-spreaders of Covid-19 and key architects of the current third wave is how social activities, including on-site consumption of alcohol and entertainment shows, were allowed unchecked as if this was 1999.
There was no wisdom in pulling long-distance drivers off the roads in the middle of nowhere under the guise of night curfews while allowing hundreds of reckless shisha pipe-sharing partygoers to dance the night away.
Whatever measures we take in the coming days must be guided by science and not emotions and fear to hurt perpetual cry babies.
Some in positions of authority are even contemplating another lockdown regime, citing how similar action helped contain the spread last year.
What these leaders are not thinking about is the devastating damage the lockdowns – which, in principle, were necessary – inflicted onto the nation.
The country was limping towards recovery but the current deadly third wave has thrown us off the rails again, taking us a dozen steps back.
As government ponders on its next steps, we caution against radical lockdown measures that would eat away what is left of our economy and completely bury the rest of us in a mass grave of starvation and joblessness.
One of the super-spreaders of Covid-19 and key architects of the current third wave is how social activities, including on-site consumption of alcohol and entertainment shows, were allowed unchecked as if this was 1999.
There was no wisdom in pulling long-distance drivers off the roads in the middle of nowhere under the guise of night curfews while allowing hundreds of reckless shisha pipe-sharing partygoers to dance the night away.
Whatever measures we take in the coming days must be guided by science and not emotions and fear to hurt perpetual cry babies.
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