Sixteen months after our first laboratory-confirmed case was announced, there can be few people in this country ignorant of Covid-19: what it is, how it spreads, how to prevent its spread, and its effects on the body once contracted.
How then does it come to pass that a suburban school was forced to close after pupils hosted a party?
One who attended the party was Covid-positive, and nine more were subsequently confirmed to be carrying the virus, putting nine more families at risk.
How, after all the education campaigns and public messaging about the need to avoid public gatherings, do we still have a situation where matric pupils think it appropriate to hold a party?
This is yet another example of the irresponsible, irrational behaviour which has plunged us into a third wave of infections, straining the Gauteng public health system to the point of breaking down.
While some strides are being made in vaccinating vulnerable sections of the population, and eventually sufficient numbers for herd immunity to be achieved, this is not happening at a pace which allows us to hold and attend unnecessary gatherings.
It seems that every step we take forward is followed by action which forces us to stumble back in leaps and bounds.
In the present instance, while the Education Department is vaccinating teachers on the one hand, on the other we have pupils gathering in numbers and infecting one another.
Also behaving in a similarly juvenile manner was the EFF, which yesterday, in an act of brazen political expediency, organised a super-spreader event in Pretoria for a pointless protest about vaccines that haven’t even been submitted for approval.
We don’t have far to look to appreciate the consequences of such action.
Both the Western Cape and Gauteng are struggling to contain the spread of infections, with Gauteng officials promising to arrest those found in public not wearing masks.
A little too late, one fears.
Such enforcement should have remained in force from the time the first case was confirmed.
Let’s not wait for the death rate to spike before we in KwaZulu-Natal amend our own behaviour.
The Independent on Saturday