On Thursday, just over 16,000 new Covid-19 infections were reported.
The majority of them were in Gauteng. It had been clear all of last week that the province was “on fire”, as some experts call it.
Notwithstanding, at least two political gatherings were held last week.
One was to support suspended ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule in a court battle with his party on Thursday. The ANC rightfully condemned the gathering, although it is unlikely that its condemnation of its members will compel them to change their ways.
The other gathering – by far the bigger – was a march by the EFF to the offices of the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (Sahpra) in Pretoria to demand a speedy approval and rollout of vaccines from Russia and China.
Marching to save lives, they called it.
To say that the march – in the midst of skyrocketing infections – was an incredibly reckless move by the EFF would be to state the obvious. Yet party loyalists continue to defend it.
Their logic, which is often touted as somewhat superior, is that the risk and eventuality of infecting each other during the march was worth it if it meant putting pressure on the regulatory body to approve their favoured vaccines.
Some said they would rather die fighting for vaccines as part of their revolution.
Let’s be clear, there is absolutely nothing revolutionary about intentionally infecting each other and dying from a virus whose spread can be minimised by decent behaviour which is considerate of those around you.
Responding to critics of the march the EFF argued, for example, that mines, schools and malls were super spreaders, breaching regulations every day, yet no-one was calling them out because they are “capital”.
This means at a time when Covid-19 is rapidly spreading across Gauteng, filling up hospitals and wiping out families, the EFF’s logic reckons because there are other places where people may be infected in their day-to-day activities, it is justifiable to demand vaccines by creating a highly infectious space where people will be infected and likely die before ever getting a jab in the arm.
It would be laughable if it was not so tragic. Then again, the EFF knows this.
Its assertion about mines and malls is typically to deflect and accuse, driving a false and tired narrative that everyone who dares to question it does so to serve the interests of “capital”.
The march against Sahpra was not only dangerous, it was an exercise in futility in as far as its claimed objectives. Sahpra is an independent body whose mandate is to protect us against any medicines that are unsafe.
Its allegiance must be to the SA public, to ensure that vaccines released to us meet all the requirements of safety, quality and efficacy. Its decisions must follow its regulatory framework, based on science.
The two vaccines demanded by the EFF are under review.
Data from Russia’s Sputnik vaccine is being reviewed as and when received from its manufacturers. This process is not political but a scientific one.
This is why Sahpra must not bow to pressure, political or otherwise, to circumvent its processes to approve vaccines. Again, EFF leader Julius Malema knows this.
Yet he still led thousands of loyalists – many of whom seemingly do not know the first thing about this process, judging by their tweets – to a march he knew would not in any way convince Sahpra to bend its rules. So why did he do it?
There are a number of theories going around. A more plausible reason stems from understanding the EFF itself as a party. Its brand of politics is wholly expressed in spectacle.
A lockdown with a limited number of people allowed to gather does not provide many opportunities for the kind of hubris that sustains the EFF in the eyes of the public. This is hugely problematic for the EFF in the run-up to the local government elections in October.
The EFF is right to call out the government on its many disasters in the handling of the Covid-9 pandemic, including the slow procurement and rollout of the vaccine.
But the party knows that it has to do more than that to sustain its image as an aggressive antagonist in our political landscape and to quench its thirst for mindless spectacle. And so on Friday it did.
So what if there’ll be some collateral damage along the way? It’s politics, chief.
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