OPINION ARTICLE


Curbing the COVID-19 Pandemic in South Africa: Taking Firmer, Aggressive Measures and Discarding Fallacy Theories



Daniel T. Goon1, *
iD
, Uchenna B. Okafor2
iD

1 Department of Public Health, University of Fort Hare, East London, South Africa
2 Department of Nursing Science, University of Fort Hare, East London, South Africa


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Creative Commons License
© 2020 Goon and Okafor.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Department of Public Health, University of Fort Hare, East London, South Africa; Tel: +27 (0) 43 704 7368; E-mail: dgoon@ufh.ac.za


Abstract

The ravaging Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) pandemic is nearly halting global activities. Disturbingly, many countries fear and continue to battle how to combat the epidemic amidst several contextual challenges. In South Africa, amidst other measures, would the ‘lockdown’ approach help curb the trend of COVID-19? What fallacy are theories spreading against facts about COVID-19? Worried by the rising cases of COVID-19, the government proposed a ‘locked down’ approach. As of 02 June 2020, COVID-19 cases in South Africa rose to 35812, with 755 deaths recorded. There is a tendency for young people to defy rules.Young people should take the lockdown seriously and discard the unfounded theories or rumors about the virus. Only a collective, decisive and disciplined approach regarding the lockdown measure could reverse the upward trend of COVID-19 cases in South Africa. The collaborative efforts of the government, the private sector and the scientific community are necessary in this situation.

Keywords: Coronavirus, COVID-19, Spread, Misconceptions transmission, Pandemic, Measures.