Robots, parking lots are dealers’ cashpoints

When the country moved to level 4 of the Covid-19 coronavirus lockdown on Friday May 1, Workers’ Day, I thought I might have misheard the president saying we were still required to stay at home. It turned out I had not misheard him. The national lockdown – imposed from midnight on March 26 – still required that people stay at home.

But clearly some could not take it any more. The images were on all media spaces – joggers and dog-walkers took to the streets; shopping malls were packed to the rafters; and on the roads there were high traffic volumes. These images raised fears that the country could return to level 5 more quickly than it would move to level 3, because people were just not adhering to the regulations.

Wearing masks and keeping a physical distance of at least a metre in public spaces had to become part of the “new normal”, the president said. But in reality, this was not the case, as seen by the many people out and about without covering their faces; the lack of physical space between recipients in lines to collect their monthly social grants; and the poor and homeless queueing for meals and food parcels.