On 11 March 2020, The World Health Organisation declared Coronavirus a pandemic (from Greek pan “all” and demos “people”). The pandemic classification means that the virus has now spread through a large geographic area and is still growing in number of infected people. At the time of writing, there are over 170 000 cases globally with 6500 deaths and the numbers are climbing.

Many countries have decided to close their borders to international travel and some countries have banned mass gatherings. Most major sporting events have been cancelled or postponed including the soccer premier league in Europe. America has cancelled major marathons, the National Hockey League as well as closed major theme parks such as Disney Land and others. 

On 15 March 2020, president Ramaphosa declared a national disaster in South Africa. Schools are set to close prematurely, gatherings over 100 people are not allowed and ill people are being urged to stay at home with limits on international and domestic travelling.

Why is this happening? Why are world leaders trying to stop people gathering in large numbers? The answer is simple: they are trying to curb the spread of COVID-19. Although the infection rate of COVID-19 and the mortality rate is still low, the virus is becoming a massive logistical problem.

Most countries have hospitals that are constantly running at a near maximum capacity with regards to number of beds available for ill patients. The COVID-19 virus adds a large number of new patients that need hospitalisation for symptomatic treatment and the hospitals simply cannot cope.

Italy is a great example where the national health system was completely swamped with new COVID-19 cases. Although only 8-14% of cases end up needing hospitalisation, 10 000 people were infected with COVID-19. This means roughly 1000 people needed to be hospitalised and there were not enough beds available to host the patients. Now Italy has to make very difficult decisions in deciding who gets to go on life support and who doesn’t based on their medical criteria.

The problem with mass travel bans and stopping people from gathering is that it creates fear. Add to this the massive amount of fake news on social media, and you have a perfect recipe for disaster. 

Some people are making drastic decisions to stockpile face-masks and gloves as well as hand sanitisers and toilet paper. All this is completely unnecessary and in fact, quite harmful to society. We find that medical personnel do not have access to personal protection equipment and are at higher risk of contracting COVID-19. In 2013 there were only 25 state doctors per 100 000 people in South Africa and 90 doctors per 100 000 in the private sector.

At the moment there are 61 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in South Africa with the first case of local transmission documented. This number grew from 1 case a 10 days ago and is expected to continue growing for a while. We have not felt the brunt of this disease yet and experts predict that things will get much worse for South Africa before it gets better. Once the virus gets into our large HIV population (7 700 000 people in 2018), our national health system will be under massive strain and we will be in a very similar boat to Italy.

This is exactly why government officials as well as medical professionals are calling for calm. The World Health Organisation has classified COVID-19 as a containable pandemic. All of these travel restrictions and group gathering bans are not intended to strike fear, but simply to try and slow the spread of the virus so that hospitals can cope with the sheer numbers of new patients.

What does all of this mean for me, the average South African?

COVID-19 is still not a death sentence. It is a mild flu-like virus and 80-85% of people who get it won’t even need to see a doctor to deal with the illness. There is no need to panic. However, one still needs to be street smart. Wash your hands, stay away from large gatherings and busy places like airports and large shopping malls. Stop buying up all of the face masks and personal protection equipment as it will serve you no purpose, but it may mean a doctor or nurse needs to go into self isolation for 2 weeks, putting even more strain on the system. 

We also urge you to go onto reputable websites and get the facts on COVID-19. A lot of WhatsApp chain-mail is fake news and only serves to cause confusion and fear.

We will continue to update the community as the story develops.