DA: Alert Level 1 has come far too late

The party reacted to the announcement by President Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday evening that Covid-19 lockdown restrictions will be further eased from Monday 21 September.

DA interim leader, John Steenhuisen says Ramaphosa should end the State of Disaster in its entirety and fully lift the curfew.

"Most of the economy should have been fully opened five months ago when the DA first called for it. 

"It was already clear by mid-April that a severe, prolonged lockdown would have devastating socioeconomic consequences, including thousands of excess deaths to other diseases, millions of livelihoods lost, millions of households plunged deeper into poverty'."

Steenhuisen says the party noticed in April already that the most vulnerable households in the country were not physically able to adhere to lockdown restrictions and that lockdown failed in slowing transmission of the virus in these areas.

"Many eminently qualified people from a variety of disciplines called for an end to lockdown months ago, including vaccinology professors Shabir Mahdi and Glenda Gray, who are on the government's own ministerial advisory committee," adds Steenhuisen.

He believes the situation can be rescued by implementing wide-ranging, pro-growth economic reforms to "roll back mounting poverty, a pandemic much more deadly than Covid."