2 April 2020

Thursday · Day 7 of lockdown

After initially increasing the capacity of taxis to 100%, the Minister of Transport, Fikile Mbalula, decreased the allowance to 70% of capacity. While South Africa experienced a slowdown in infections, with only 27 new cases on this day, globally, coronavirus cases neared the one million mark. France, Italy, Spain and the US were the first four countries to report over 4 000 coronavirus deaths. In the UK, 10 000 coronavirus tests were being conducted a day, but Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, announced that this would be expanded to 100 000 tests a day. This announcement came as health officials in the country expressed frustration at a lack of progress in increasing the number of coronavirus tests.

Today was a day of resting – resting my mind, my body and shutting down my natural instinct to keep busy. I truly believe that once in a while, in order to regain strength and to boost future productivity, we need to rest. This concept can be expanded to the whole economy. This lockdown and the shutdown of the economy can be seen as a resting period in which we can choose to repurpose ourselves, regain strength and regroup in order to put back the broken pieces of our world in a more effective way than before.

That being said, there are people who are not experiencing rest or time to regroup. Our medical professionals were called to the frontlines in this war against the coronavirus and for them, this is no time of rest. It is thus our job to pick up the pieces of our economy while they make life and death decisions and put themselves at risk to save the people of their country. And this is not only the case in far off in Italy anymore. According to recent accounts from South African doctors (and medical interns), this fight has come home. Our people are also starting to die.

* * *

“Everyone has it inside themselves this plague, because no one in the world, no one, can ever be immune.” – Albert Camus, La Peste.

About a week before classes were suspended, my French class was assigned Albert Camus’s The Plague. I thought it fitting, but at the time would never have been able to imagine how eerily similar our situation would be to that described in the novel. The story opens with a description of an ordinary world with its inhabitants leading busy, distracted lives. Then out of nowhere rats start dying in their masses and soon afterwards, the inhabitants themselves become infected with a virus. Camus wanted to highlight our fraught mortality – the idea that we can, at any moment, be randomly exterminated.

Instead of allowing this realisation to cause despair, however, it can lead to a renewed appreciation of our humanity. Instead of being absorbed in our day-to-day activities, this pandemic has brought everything to a standstill, forcing us to take a step back and re-evaluate what we want to prioritise (family, our physical and mental health, hobbies that add meaning to our lives etc.). A ‘plague’ is not something backward that belongs to history; we as a modern, technologically advanced society are equally susceptible to its devastating consequences. If there is any philosophical meaning we can draw from these events, it must be this: there is no escaping our frailty.

* * *

Lockdown day seven. The amount of infected [persons] globally continues to rise on a daily basis. In my opinion, though, the coronavirus pandemic is not as big as the world is making it seem. Looking at the number of deaths worldwide and the number of infected persons, the percentages are actually relatively small. Personally, I think that the only reason people are fearful is due to the fact that the virus spreads unbelievable quickly and endangers those with weak immune systems. In situations in which people feel that their lives are threatened or in danger, they will also try to protect themselves and all the values we were taught – such as respect, kindness, help those who are suffering, etc. – are going out the door.

* * *

One week down, two to go. I can’t decide whether time has gone fast or slow. The days feel extremely long, but then when I sit back and realise it’s already been a week, then it feels like time is passing by quickly. I don’t want to sound negative or that I’m wishing time away, but I do want these next two weeks to be over as soon as possible. I really do miss my pre-lockdown life and routine. I know that I will most likely never have this much time for myself again, and I should utilise it to my best advantage, but I really can’t wait for things to be ‘back to normal’. I put that in inverted commas because I don’t think life will ever be as normal as it was when we come out of this. This pandemic has certainly changed our way of life and also will impact our lifestyles in the future.

* * *

I have been noticing that as the days go on, I am waking up later and later. I hit a new record today and woke up at 12:00 pm. Pre-Covid-19 this would have really worried me, but at this point all I can say is: it is what it is.

I ended the day with a much-needed phone call with a friend where of course the main topic of discussion was the pandemic. As she is from UCT [the University of Cape Town], we compared notes on how our different universities are dealing with the crisis. She said that from now on, for the foreseeable future assignments would be graded PASS/FAIL, not specific marks. So far, Stellenbosch hasn’t said anything similar, but things could change at any moment.

We also spoke about what the pandemic meant for our futures. She seemed quite optimistic, but I (having fallen into another YouTube rabbit hole earlier that day) was not so optimistic. We will be entering the working force next and having to deal with the repercussions of this pandemic. Suddenly my future didn’t seem so exciting and filled with possibility – just incredibly scary. So as not to end the conversation on a sombre note, we promised ourselves that once this pandemic was over, we were going to take hold of every opportunity that presents itself. I will go to the next wine tasting!

* * *

With each passing day, my enthusiasm weakens as I come to write. I have started to resent my previous days’ work as I all too easily come off as a pretentious pseudo-intellectual.

Though sitting on my growing resentment, I managed to get a bit of work done; my statistics project is looking promising.

I also managed to stumble upon Gil Scott-Heron’s Comment #1, which may in fact be the highlight of my day. Though I understand Gil Scott-Heron wrote this poem in a different time for different people, it gave me much to think about as I listened to it on repeat. Sadly, these journal entries are not meant for poem reviews, so I will slickly and quickly try to mention one line that hit close to home. Gil Scott-Heron instructed a “pale face” SDS [member of the group Students For A Democratic Society] student to find his own revolution, as the students fight in the revolution cannot be compared to Gil Scott-Heron’s struggle. Gil Scott-Heron aims to acquire the basic luxuries that the students most likely already possess.

It made me question what real struggles I have really faced growing up as a middle-class straight white guy in South Africa. I latch on to other people’s revolutions because of the luxury of not needing to fight in any of my own. No struggle. My only fight is my own psychological one.

* * *

I was looking at good stock picks on the JSE [Johannesburg Stock Exchange] today. Every disaster can be an opportunity and I intend to make full use of this opportunity. I’ve been looking at buying Woolworths for a while now. They have a new CEO, and although their financials are in a dire condition, at the current discount they’re trading at, I believe the buy is worth it. I don’t think they’ll collapse or liquidate themselves. Another good buy could be the banks. On top of the stock market crashing, they’ve taken a beating from the downgrade recently. Capitec looks like the most attractive option. I don’t think I’m going to buy just yet, though, I think worse is still to come, and I plan to time this perfectly.

* * *

Today marks the [end of the] first week of lockdown. In light of this, we did a family fast. We had a good praise and worship session before we broke our fast. Straight after that I had a Bible study video call with two of my friends. It was so good to see them and just be able to speak about our experience with this lockdown from a Godly perspective.

* * *

I am starting to find a good rhythm during lockdown. I think my balance between work and play is solid. I had an educational conversation with a friend regarding the coronavirus. We discussed whether the government has an accurate way of measuring the effectiveness of the lockdown. One obvious answer is by tracking the number of new cases per day in South Africa. […] My biggest concern is that the government will only focus on the number of people who are infected and not [those] affected by the virus. Small businesses will crumble and people living day-to-day will need to take drastic measures in order to survive. Although the spread of the virus needs to be contained, it is important to realise that not everyone can survive more than three weeks without a salary.

* * *

I was watching a programme on a news channel today. They were discussing conspiracy theories regarding the coronavirus. All these theories relate to China creating and/or spreading this virus. It will be interesting to see what happens once all of this is over. My mum is very vocal with how she feels; she thinks that all the countries should ban or boycott any trade with China because she is convinced that China did this purposely for economic power. I do not know what to think.