Title:
More eyes on the problem: Perspectives from Political Science: Insights from the political management of COVID-19
Author:
Adam Habib
University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Johannesburg, South Africa
Published:
South African Journal of Science, Volume 116, Number 7/8 (2020)
From the article:
When COVID-19 arrived on our shores, our political authorities quickly assembled the medical fraternity’s best minds to advise them on how to respond. The President very quickly engaged in consultations with opposition parties and with social actors including business, labour and civic players like religious leaders. A private–public partnership in the form of a Solidarity Fund was announced, and a number of billionaire families including the Oppenheimers, Ruperts and Motsepes pledged a billion rand each. This was rapidly followed by government’s decision to impose one of the most rigid and extreme lockdowns announced anywhere in the world. We collectively beamed at this decisive, world-class response. We bathed in the praise of the World Health Organization, of the recognitions of our public–private partnerships, and in the realisation that the political responses of our President and government were based on evidence, data and world-class science.
Then COVID-19 exposed the crude underbelly of South Africa.