JOHANNESBURG, 14 May 2020: President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement yesterday on May 13, that the South African government intends to ease the lockdown to Level 3 and begin reopening the economy is a welcome relief.

This was understandably a difficult decision for President Ramaphosa to make given the balancing act he has to manage. His commitment to finding suitable solutions to alleviate the effects of this crisis is to be applauded.

However, the proposed two-week timeline for this transition is far too long considering the current economic risk.

With every passing day, the consequences of the continued lockdown have become more extreme and threaten the very viability of South Africa and its increasingly fragile economy, says the Pandemics – Data and Analytics (PANDA) group.

Further, the President’s proposal that certain metropolitan municipalities and districts would remain under “stringent restrictions” and that travel to and from these areas would be restricted for the foreseeable future is cause for serious concern and consideration.

Metropolitan municipalities are South Africa’s economic hubs as well as catalysts for growth and innovation. Any continued restraint upon them will undoubtedly hamstring the country’s collective recovery efforts.

Last week, PANDA provided President Rampahosa and members of the National Coronavirus Command Council (NCCC) the initiative’s analysis of the economic impact of the current national lockdown in response to the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

The then 23-page report was accompanied by an urgent plea to President Ramaphosa and the NCCC to revise the current approach to the lockdown. Certain members of the NCCC and other spheres of government have engaged with PANDA and the report. However, the Presidency has yet to do so directly.

PANDA aims to assist the government to make the best possible, informed decisions and believes the consequences of the continued lockdown should be measured against the economic costs and second-order impacts.

“By using commercially tested actuarial principles, we have been able to estimate the lockdown’s economic contraction on South Africans’ mortality, or the ‘years of life lost’, which currently could be 30 times worse than the reduction in mortality due to actual contraction of the virus,” said PANDA co-ordinator, Nick Hudson.

The abovementioned “years of life lost” is a calculation of the number of years of life lost when someone dies due to an incident, compared with that person’s remaining life expectancy at the point of death.

“We derive our 30 times multiple by taking the low point of the economic contraction effect and dividing by the high point of the hospital overburdening effect. Under a less conservative view, this multiple would be substantially higher,” explained Hudson.

The lockdown has caused a sharp contraction in production and exchange in the economic system, some of which is likely to recover over years, rather than weeks or months.

It is currently estimated that the South African GDP could shrink between 10 and 15% as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

The temporary and permanent aspects of that contraction have an impact on the ability of millions of people to make a living.

PANDA estimates that the massive job and revenue losses would drive more people into poverty and 3.3 million people out of employment. This reduction of income will, in turn, cause a material decrease in life expectancy of at least 14 million years, our years of lost life, across the South African population, by PANDA’s latest estimate.

Six weeks ago, relevant and reliable data was sparse and concerning. A rapid lockdown was a prudent decision. However, South Africa is now approaching 50 days under lockdown and desperate calls to end the lockdown on the streets are being echoed on social media by nationally trending hashtags such as ‘#endthelockdownSA’.

“We are mindful that employment cannot be at the expense of people’s health, and now have much more local data and analysis to inform the lockdown strategy going forward. PANDA will continue to engage the government and other stakeholders during this transition period, and adjust our models accordingly as we receive feedback and new data,” Hudson added.

“As South Africa looks toward shifting its lockdown from Level 4 to Level 3 and beyond in future, it is becoming increasingly clear that the decisions ahead have to account for both lives and livelihoods,” he said. “We need to be bold about saving our economy and saving all lives, right now and in the future. It is not a trade-off, but we must keep trading or we will not have a viable economy with which to enter a post-COVID-19 world.”