Attorney Michael de Broglio on: South Africa, Law, Politics, Attorneys, Sport, Photography, Technology, Gadgets, Media, Crime, Road Accidents Fund,
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As we know, from State President Cyril Ramaphosa’s speech, we now get 12,000 new cases everyday or about 500 new infections every hour. Covid-19 is really spreading very fast through South Africa and all of those who had theories, some of which sounded great, about not temperatures not allowing Covid-19 to spread or the BCG vaccinations we were all given, have obviously seen those theories shot to pieces. South Africa is not special in terms of avoiding Covid-19 and all the theories that were circulated have all turned out to be absolute nonsense.
Part of the problem in South Africa is that a lot of people have been ignoring the social distancing rules and congregating in big groups even when they are collecting food supplies. People continued to attend funerals and as the State President mentioned some funerals have more than 1,000 people in attendance. As long as this continues and as long as people continue to ignore basics such as washing their hands and wearing masks, the virus will continue to spread.
Sadly South Africa, according to the State President, has a shortage of more than 12,000 health workers, mostly nurses but also doctors and physiotherapists. Some of them of course have left South Africa to go overseas where they get better opportunities and again, they don’t have to deal with CCMA regulations and some of the nonsense that one has to deal with in South Africa. At least now there is some sense and instead of going to a higher alert level the President said, “… that taking the step now would not necessarily achieve a significant reduction in the rate of transmission and would come at an extraordinary economic cost, putting more livelihoods at risk and potentially causing long-lasting social harm.” Is that not exactly what I said when we got the most ridiculous lockdown in the world? Did it achieve anything? Less than 1,000 cases became how many cases? People could not get food and started standing in long lines, close to each other, singing and dancing and spreading the disease further. We achieved absolutely nothing with that lockdown and it is a good thing that we are not doing things that way, but a curfew is important.
In particular, people need to understand that the days of going to nightclubs and bars are absolutely over until there is a vaccine and those types of businesses should not and cannot be allowed to reopen. Should you be able to drink at home – yes, but there is no basis to go and stand together at a bar and meet new people. Let’s be honest, a lot of the young people we are hearing about catching the disease are not just getting it from breathing too closely to somebody else – they are actually kissing somebody else because it is very hard to lock up young people for a long time, and they do want to get out, meet each other and have a good time and that is precisely what is spreading the disease now so quickly between young people.
On the other hand, it is true that South Africa has a terrible problem with alcohol and that the vast majority of deaths do, as the State President said, happen at night after people have been drinking.
Posted by Michael de Broglio on Thursday 16-Jul-20
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Comments
Helen said:
on Thursday 13-Aug-20 08:21 AM
Majority of SA people are amazed me with their behavior and actual understanding of president speech.
Just the night before everyone was listening speech and the very next day majority of people gathering together ignoring social distancing, dancing and drinking together, not wearing masks!
We all have to follow rules to fight this virus, it is very serious!
Tamaryn said:
on Thursday 06-Aug-20 10:22 AM
I understand the curfew but all other regulations need to be forgotten. They're ineffective and unnecessary and breaking the back of the economy. Perhaps some of the medical experts the WHO flew in to SA will help the government see some light.
Kendall said:
on Tuesday 04-Aug-20 03:24 PM
The spread of the virus is inevitable. From my experience I have been very cautious since the start of this pandemic to wear my mask, limit going out, keeping my distance from others where possible and sanitizing, yet I still got infected. Thankfully my symptoms were very mild. Although there are over 8000 deaths in our country currently, it is relatively low in relation to a population of over 57 million people. The statistics of recorded cases in South Africa are extremely inaccurate and we definitely have a lot more than half a million cases of people that have not been tested or are asymptomatic.
brumilde said:
on Tuesday 04-Aug-20 01:37 PM
I agree with the alcohol ban. Yes most enjoy it and use it to celebrate or helps them in other unknown ways. But i would not want to loose a spot in a hospital because some drunk person caused and accident. The violence it creates as well. Yes it does impact business.
Dasanya said:
on Monday 03-Aug-20 02:47 PM
I think as a country, we were in denial about what was to come. The lockdown did not achieve anything as we are now sitting with over half a million cases which keeps rising daily. People do not realise the importance of social distancing and santisation and while our recovery rate seems to be good, we have to worry about the elderly and those with underlying conditions who won't be so lucky.
Sinead said:
on Friday 31-Jul-20 05:00 PM
How the number of cases rose so quickly boggles my mind... But then again, there are so many South Africans that aren't really law-abiding citizens. There is no social distancing in some areas.
Zandelee said:
on Friday 31-Jul-20 08:40 AM
Cape Town who was at first the province soaring with positive cases has now seen a drop in their confirmed cases which seems to be a positive
Joyce said:
on Wednesday 29-Jul-20 04:26 PM
it is sad that people are still not taking this pandemic serious even after a complete lockdown of level five. I think it would be better if people who are able to follow the rules just continue and follow rules and hope the cure is discovered soon
Prishani said:
on Tuesday 28-Jul-20 10:49 AM
I think people will just have to learn to be responsible, this is all we can do at this point as we wait for the vaccine. It will cause more harm then good to have another hard lockdown.
Jessica said:
on Tuesday 28-Jul-20 09:27 AM
I for one know that the spread is still to hit its peak. Reason why, people here do not know what social distancing is. Here we need to work, we need to bring people to look after our kids. It is the way of life I guess. Either work and eat, or stay at home and starve. It is like that for everyone and what choice do we really have. All I do is pray and that is honestly in my own opinion the only way to survive this.
Brenda Strydom said:
on Tuesday 28-Jul-20 07:40 AM
This Pandemic caused a bad impact on our economy. People is not taking this seriously.All we can do is try and keep ourselves safe and keep moving forward.
Roxanne said:
on Thursday 23-Jul-20 04:06 PM
If the rules are not followed we will never rid ourselves of this pandemic. The sooner we abide by the rules, the sooner the infection rate will drop and slowly things will go back to normal.
Danielle said:
on Tuesday 21-Jul-20 04:56 PM
I hope that we can get a vaccine sooner than later. People do not take it serious and way to many people are being affected by this.
Kayla said:
on Tuesday 21-Jul-20 04:43 PM
This Pandemic has caused a great economic impact on the country. The lockdown in the beginning most certainly did not help at all in my eyes. People will unfortunately ignore the rules , and through this ignorance they will contract the virus, or their ignorance will in deed put others in danger. All we can do is try and keep ourselves safe from this virus and follow protocols, and Pray that soon their will be a vaccination to this nightmare.
Michelle D said:
on Tuesday 21-Jul-20 04:43 PM
The virus is spreading like wildfire because, funerals aside, people cannot social distance. Taxi's are being loaded to 100% capacity, most people don't have the financial capacity to take another mode of transport. As so many industries have collapsed, people have no option but to wait in food lines. I have never encountered so many desperate and downtrodden people in my life as I have in the past few weeks and the entire situation feels extremely hopeless. Local restaurants and bars have closed down as people are either too poor or are too scared to go out. That's a multitude of families that now have been left with nothing and are being forced to go stand in those crowded collection lines. It is extremely sad when someone close to you dies. But personally I have not heard of one person dying of covid-19 because they couldn't get sufficient care - it's because they had the unfortunate genes and would have died from the virus with or without hospitalisation.
Chante said:
on Tuesday 21-Jul-20 03:55 PM
It is scary to think that SA now has the fifth highest number of cases in the world. It is true that young people are not taking this as seriously as they should be, etc.
Angelique said:
on Tuesday 21-Jul-20 03:46 PM
People (youngsters) only start taking it seriously when it hits home and if someone they personally know is infected fatally. Other than that, I can see on my instagram how people are still having big get togethers, drinking and not having a worry in the world. I saw someone on my social media host a kiddies birthday party where adults were around too - not one child or adult had their mask on. I was absolutely shocked. As if hosting a party wasn't bad enough, they blatantly disregarded all safety measures all together. Plain stupid, there is no other word to describe it.
Ashleigh said:
on Tuesday 21-Jul-20 02:55 PM
Due to people having careless attitudes, other people are suffering as a result. If it is not people getting ill, it is people dying and other things like our health care system taking a knock as well. I feel that not many people believe that this virus is real and hence why they carry on the way they do until it hits close to home which has happened in my household already.
Colleen Kaufmann said:
on Tuesday 21-Jul-20 09:10 AM
Lockdown Level 5 was supposed to increase bed capacity and essentially prepare the health care system for the outbreak of the virus. The sad truth of the matter is that even before Covid, our healthcare system was fragile and an outbreak to this magnitude will emphasize this weakness. The system in place does not present many arguments for a qualified doctor to not leave the country, which is part of the problem. We have a brain drain and there is a reason. The regulations such as social distancing etc will not stop the spread of the virus, it will only slow down the spread for the purpose of our fragile healthcare system being able to handle the outbreak.
Thabitha said:
on Tuesday 21-Jul-20 09:06 AM
I must say people who are spreading virus at night clubs and drinking alcohol they are not considering other people or even the government, when you are staying in our locations you will see the reality of the sadness of the impact of Covid 19 first place we need to wash hands all the time and most of the time there is not water and too many people are living in small houses most of us we can not afford to buy houses so they must share rooms it is not easy or nice and the anxiety and fear is so high.
Melissa van Tellingen said:
on Tuesday 21-Jul-20 08:48 AM
I agree that the level 5 lockdown didn't achieve anything. I do however believe that the country came to a realisation and noticed that there are so many south africans out there that truly struggle and don't have the basic necessities, like food and water.
It's important to place yourself in the shoes of these people standing in long lines for food parcels. Would you not do the same for your family? I know I would risk my life to provide food for my loved ones. It's easy for us to look from a distance and say that they are not following the right regulations. They should have not been placed in that position in the first place - This is the cause of a failing government.
Bronwyn said:
on Tuesday 21-Jul-20 08:26 AM
I Really Wish that people could start taking this seriously so many people dying yet some still being ignorant, if everyone adheres to the rules we should start seeing less cases.
Claudia B said:
on Tuesday 21-Jul-20 08:08 AM
I would most definitely agree and say that most people are ignoring the the rules of social distancing. if everyone could follow the rules the new cases of Covid-19 would not be so high.
Victoria said:
on Monday 20-Jul-20 01:00 PM
I agree that a lot of people are ignoring the rules and regulations that have been put in place.I think alcohol is a big issue in South Africa with regards to drunk driving and abuse so hospital beds are being used for accidents and abuse cases instead of Covid.
Nicolene said:
on Friday 17-Jul-20 01:57 PM
I agree, we did not achieve a significant reduction. It won't work even if we had to go to a higher alert level. The people will still ignore the social distancing rules and we're still able to buy alcohol & cigarettes. I still don't get it…
We're allowed to socialize with our families in a restaurant and in a casino, but they're not allowed to come to my house?
I drove past another house in my street yesterday and the people probably had a funeral. There was way more than 50 people gathering and when I just listen to music all by myself, not even 5 mins later then the police stop there to see if I am obeying to the rules or not.
What the hell? How does that make sense? I just wish we can get a cure for this now.
Henrietta said:
on Friday 17-Jul-20 08:10 AM
South Africa is also crippled, another lockdown will just do more damage than it already has. The early lockdown did not do much on my opinion. They were supposed to increase bed capacity,prepare for the high increases of infection bla bla bla but I don't see that it happened. I'm just tired of all the unfairness, rules that just absolutely makes no sense and I feel in a way that our government has failed us. We paid a lot of taxes but to this day we don't see the benefits of those taxes paid. It's suppose to help us. Let's not talk about the increase of load shedding and power cuts, the crimes, unemployments ect those figures already shows we doomed. I really truly hope that South Africa will survive more than just this virus. No matter what the situation is you will always have people who will disobey the rules who will show they know better until it hits close to home and its to late.
thembi said:
on Friday 17-Jul-20 07:49 AM
I donot think that we have achieved anything because we are bad now with this corona. The hospitals are full and that we also borrowed alot of money from other country but people are losing jobs
sandra said:
on Friday 17-Jul-20 07:48 AM
I am actually so tired of this virus and gone are the good days of not having to wear masks or think twice before you touch something and sanatise it. Alcohol lands people in hospitals whether it is prior or due to this virus.
Karien said:
on Thursday 16-Jul-20 08:10 PM
The increase in the number of alcohol related accidents and increase in gender based violence cases since the lifting of the initial alcohol ban speaks for itself. At this stage, the reinstatement of an alcohol ban was a necessary precaution. There aren't enough beds and a bed filled with an alcohol related injury is a wasted one.
It is a terrible time for young people since they have a great need for socializing. I, myself haven't been out in public since the initial lockdown started in March, and the only advice I can give to persons craving social interaction, is to invest that energy into something that will benefit you in future.
Daniella said:
on Thursday 16-Jul-20 04:30 PM
Nobody could have prepared for a pandemic however it is in my opinion that if there wasn't constant corruption going on in our politics and the finances weren't constantly misused and were invested in the economy and were used to fund and run government facilities properly i.e government hospitals years before the virus I think the impact the virus has had on our country wouldn't have been as bad as it been. I agree that the lockdown was way too early
Mathilda said:
on Thursday 16-Jul-20 03:49 PM
It's really heartbreaking that so many people lost their jobs and for some it was their only means of income.
In my opinion they should have introduced intermittent lock-down from the beginning and not the hard lock-down that was totally unnecessary.
I'm all for the alcohol ban because it goes hand in hand with idiotic injuries and abuse.
Natasha said:
on Thursday 16-Jul-20 02:01 PM
We went into the Lockdown too early we will never survive another lockdown.South Africa wont have anything left if that happens
Megan said:
on Thursday 16-Jul-20 12:19 PM
The feeling of hopelessness setting in. I think the government always ends up following another countries instructions which never works out here. I see where they were going with the lockdown but once again something backfired and here we are, spiraling... Negativity is a very real mindset at this point.
Ziyanda said:
on Thursday 16-Jul-20 11:35 AM
I agree that we went to lockdown too early and now we cannot have another hard lockdown. Now we can only hope that people will change their behavior -follow the rules and regulations which most people have not been following.
Courtney said:
on Thursday 16-Jul-20 10:56 AM
I think the lock down must have only started in June. The cold months but it's my opinion.
The lock down didn't help with anything except for people to lose jobs.
I really wish they can get a cure for this virus so that we can feel human again.
lucretia said:
on Thursday 16-Jul-20 10:26 AM
If the hard lock down did what it was supposed to do, i.e. prep hospitals and other places for the onslaught of the virus then the hard lock down would not have been in vein, however, government did absolutely nothing like this and therefore a lot of people lost their jobs and the economy lost revenue for absolutely no reason. We were just lied too once again............
Patrick Sedutla said:
on Thursday 16-Jul-20 10:14 AM
I agree, the lock down never helped much. It was said that it will help flatten the curve but it appears as if we are now reaching the pick and when can just pray for warmer whether hoping it will help alleviate the numbers. I also agree with you that he acted clever by allowing people to continue going to work because otherwise lots of people will loose their jobs.
Melissa van Tellingen said:
on Thursday 16-Jul-20 09:43 AM
South Africa will not survive another hard lockdown. If banning alcohol prevents that, I'm completely find with it.
Lourien said:
on Thursday 16-Jul-20 09:37 AM
The lockdown rules and regulations that are implemented are to such extremes, what they do not understand is there will always be people not following these rule or regulations. There are people that will be spending their last money that they had for food to buy alcohol at such high prices just to make sure they can get their hands on another bottle.
I totally agree with the banning of alcohol as it is needed but making sure that alcohol is not sold is a different situation.The President said we cannot have the hospital full of patients that have been injured due to alcohol abuse when we need the beds for the sick.
melissa said:
on Thursday 16-Jul-20 09:17 AM
Our economy will not survive if another lockdown must happen and no the lockdown that happened in March didn't really work or slowed the process down so I don't understand what the point was for a lockdown. Covid-19 cases are getting more by the day because, like the President said there are some people that simply don't obey the rules
Melandre' said:
on Thursday 16-Jul-20 08:57 AM
I completely agree that another hard lockdown would only have crippled our economy. A curfew and certain prohibitions such as the sale of alcohol, is the best possible resolution for the time being.
Bianca Niemann said:
on Thursday 16-Jul-20 08:49 AM
We went into lockdown too early,when the virus was still in it's infancy in South Africa. Now, we cannot afford to go back into lockdown again - our economy will not survive. And yet now the virus is spreading so rapidly that we are not able to keep up in terms of medical staff and medical equipment.
Tayla said:
on Thursday 16-Jul-20 08:46 AM
We need more beds and less alcohol related cases in the hospitals, cases are rapidly increasing.
david said:
on Thursday 16-Jul-20 08:23 AM
remember when you used to have to have sex with the person to get the virus?
nowadays just standing to close to someone can be deadly...
Alexis said:
on Thursday 16-Jul-20 07:44 AM
Alcohol has always been a problem in South Africa, and the extremes that people will go to just to get that drink at the end of the day. It is quite sad that through this terrible time that people cannot wake up and do what is necessary to stop the spread
South Africa did it to themselves, and they cnan only blame themselves for it, we are in dire needs of hospital beds etc, and they cannot be filled up with trauma being caused by being irresponsible. .
Johannesburg based attorney specializing in personal injury matters including Road Accident Fund claims and medical negligence matters. My interests include golf, reading and the internet and the way it is constantly developing. I have a passion for life and a desire for less stress!
