Today, the President’s Coordinating Council (PCC) on COVID-19 is expected to meet and make a decision on the recommendations that regulations making it necessary to wear masks in public indoor areas be scrapped.
This follows a letter from the national minister of Health, Dr Joe Phaahla to nine provinces’ Health MECs yesterday, expressing the view that the remaining COVID-19 regulations should be repealed, including among others, the compulsory wearing of face masks, limitations on attendance at gatherings; and imitations on entry to the Republic for travellers.
According to the statement released yesterday, Dr. Phaahla made these proposals following the decline in hospitalisations and reported COVID-19 cases. Unions and senior government officials seem to be in favor of the proposal as per Business Tech.
The City of Cape Town executive mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis has called on all the MECs, the national Cabinet and the President to support Minister Phaahla’s recommendations and implement them with no further delay. “This is also the case I will make at tomorrow’s President’s Coordinating Council (PCC) meeting. The country has clearly exited the fifth wave of infections. In addition to this, the rates of death and hospitalisation in the January and May waves were considerably lower than the previous ones, even though the majority of restrictions had already been dropped,” he said.
Hill-Lewis added that the remaining restrictions also disproportionately and unfairly affect certain groups in society, including young school children and ordinary, wage-earning workers. “While patrons of restaurants are free to unmask to enjoy a meal in comfort, for example, waiting and kitchen staff are forced to be masked for up to twelve hours at a time. Children as young as seven years old are being forcibly subjected to the discomfort of all day masking, often while school management are comfortably maskless in schools’ administrative offices,” he said.
He added that it was time to move on from “irrational COVID-19 restrictions, and from state control over private aspects of our lives in the interests of containing a disease whose threat to human life has considerably diminished.”
Weighing in on the matter, the SA Democratic Teachers’ Union (SADTU) told News24 that they would only support the department’s policies if they are informed by science. “If the decision is informed by science and based on a decrease in the number of infections, we would not have a problem with lifting the mask mandate. We have said from the beginning of the pandemic that we believe science should dictate what is happening,” said spokesperson, Nomusa Cembi.
She added that they’re concerned about schools in townships and rural areas which are overcrowded. “If the restrictions are lifted, they may become super-spreaders. Ideally, we’d like to see more classrooms being built to reduce overcrowding,” she said.
Also read:
No more masks? Health Minister proposes changes to COVID regulations
Picture: Unsplash