South Africa’s COVID-19 Strategy Needs Updating: Here’s Why and How

Decision-making at the early stages of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic (the coronavirus causing COVID-19) was constrained by a paucity of medical evidence and epidemiological data. Knowledge gained over the past two months can therefore inform the next phase of the strategy.

In the context of the initial uncertainty, South Africa’s early lockdown was prudent. It allowed time to prepare the health care system, to ramp up wide-spread testing and to introduce other measures to reduce transmission rates. Extending the lockdown is no longer required. It is also no longer reducing transmission rates and has become unaffordable.

Current evidence indicates that:

• It is impossible to eliminate the virus and the spread will continue. Only a few countries have been able to minimise the rate of spread but they remain highly susceptible to repeated outbreaks.
• The majority, approximately 70%, of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 are asymptomatic, or have a moderate, self-limiting