There has been a rapid redirection of resources towards COVID-19-related research. In the long term, this resource reallocation is likely to result in budget cuts in all research areas.
The number of lives that would be lost from COVID-19 if the restrictions ended far exceed the number of extra deaths expected from recession if it continued.
South Africa’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic was one of ‘intervene first and ask questions later’. Now is the time for government to state clearly what its strategic endgame is.
It’s possible to evaluate countries’ readiness to lift their lockdowns, based on how well they managed the first wave of the pandemic, and how ready they are for a digital economy.
What are the moral considerations in making the decision to reopen society while mitigating the risk of infections spreading? We asked a philosophy scholar to walk us through the quandary.
Dean Faculty of Health Sciences and Professor of Vaccinology at University of the Witwatersrand; and Director of the SAMRC Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytics Research Unit, University of the Witwatersrand