troglodyte wrote: Sun Aug 16, 2020 5:40 pm
Blake wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 8:35 pm
Level 2
Booze, smokes, inter-provincial travel all allowed now.
Booze also allowed in restaurants until 22:00.
Parks, beaches and gyms to open.
Sport allowed but no crowds.
Gatherings limited to 50 max.
Masks still mandatory.
Curfew still in place.
I agreed with the initial 3 (extended to 5) week lockdown, which was there to prepare the health care system (which wasn't done). Ramaphosa last night said exactly this.
But after that initial 3/5 week lockdown, we should've gone straight to this level 2.
I mostly agree with this.
I think it is important to make a distinction between:
a. Lockdown and the announcement on Lockdown Levels (made by medical professionals, academics etc)
b. And the restrictions that are applied at each Lockdown Level drawn up by bureaucrats in government
There regulations are by nature extremely flawed as they are rushed through without proper consultation and debate, and bad compromises between the governing party pushing their own agenda, labour unions, business, NGOs and some experts. The reality is it's been a clusterfuck and the very small silver lining has been that the bungling and corruption has pissed off a number of ANC voters as well.
The actual lockdown levels are more empirical and guided by best estimates of infection data. Our estimated R0 dipped below 0.5 last week, so we dropped to Level 2. My main criticism here is that the models and data used for decision making were not being transparently shared with the public. It would have been much more effective IMO, if they had published the model, discussed it every night on the news and given us something to aim for as a collective. Just saying "we need to flatten the curve" is useful as a slogan, but if they had given us provincial and national metrics to chase of each level to be reduced I think buy in would have been much better. Sometime like Infection Rate R0 (L1 <0.2, L2 <0.5, L3 <1, L4 < 1.2, L5>=1.2), Hospital Capacity (L5 < 5%, L4 < 10%, L3 < 15%, L4 < 20%, L5 < 25%) etc. When you see the numbers go up or down week to week, it becomes easier to justify wearing a mask to help the R0 go down and for everybody to pull in the same direction.
It's easy to say and hard to do, especially on the fly during the surge, but hopefully there will be some lessons learnt from this, and the NICD will plan better for the next pandemic, because there will be a next one.
, but I do understand the parents concerns re Covid. We are very active socially still .... well maybe less than before but every weekend we arrange something so we don't go mad.....its great to hear other peoples kak....just to confirm we are not that bad..
