Lockdown's legacy: South Africa, five years on

East Coast Radio's sister station, Jacaranda FM, has created a five-part podcast series commemorating five years since the country's hard lockdown on 26 March 2020. 

In the latest episode of ‘The COVID Chronicles’, the team explores the impact of the lockdown regulations and the lasting impact these had on individual lives and the world as we know it.

Listen to the latest episode below:

Enacted under the Disaster Management Act, the regulations included suspending domestic and international travel, compulsory mask-wearing, and screening. Mass gatherings were also prohibited, with only frontline employees - wearing the necessary personal protective equipment—allowed to go out.

Research evidence mostly supports the implementation of non-pharmaceutical interventions as a measure to curb the rapid spread of the novel virus and to buy time for scientists and clinicians to treat infections and find the now multiple vaccines we currently have at our disposal.

Clinical psychologist Zamo Mbele speaks of the loss, not only of loved ones but also of ideals and individuality, which he’s coined a “narcissistic blow” to the idea of independence and self-determination.

“Please forget everything said on popular social media platforms like TikTok…or the internet. For this argument, it was a blow to the idea that we don’t need anything or anyone else; we could be self-determining, we can do everything ourselves, nothing will make us vulnerable, needy, impoverished, nothing will control us, nothing will be our authority.”

Kopano Molapisi, from Soweto, chokes up when he remembers his effervescent friend Mulalo Nemukula, who succumbed to COVID-19 in January 2021.

“I was in communication with Mulalo a day before her passing – through texts – she wanted me to help her niece with a project. I don’t like texts; I’m a caller. When I called, she didn’t answer my calls. I got angry. I didn’t know that Mulalo was weak at the time. In the morning, we continued texting each other – and she just said, ‘Blesser, I am in hospital’. I knew Mulalo was in and out of hospital – so, I knew she would come back. But fast forward to around lunchtime – I got a call from her niece, and I thought it was a continuation of our discussion because I was helping her with a project, and she was like, ‘Kopano, I have some bad news for you. Mulalo has passed’. It hit me hard.”

Nemukula had survived breast cancer in the preceding years when she discovered during one of her regular checkups that the disease had returned – this time more aggressively. When the virus found its way into her system, like many others with comorbidities, her chances of survival were severely compromised.

Her family had the unbearable task of organising a funeral for their beloved while adhering to the strict regulations at the height of the pandemic.

There would be no memorial service, no night vigil, no church service, no community…just the clinical process of interring her mortal remains into the ground.

Mbele also believes that while in the grips of the pandemic, families and individuals had no choice but to get on and get by.

“Five years later, part suspect, and to some extent have seen, is that we’re returning to that grief and are getting know that perhaps we didn’t grief properly. Perhaps we didn’t grieve enough, and unfortunately for most people, in some cases, there wasn’t even a time to grieve. Not just what was lost, but in very many ways the ‘who’ was lost.”

Listen to more episodes from this special limited podcast series in the channel below:

The COVID Chronicles: Masks, Thermometers, and ‘My Fellow South Africans’ is a JacPod Original series. It has been researched, written, produced and presented by the Jacaranda FM News team