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Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa’s president, announced Saturday that the country will return to a stricter lockdown due to a surge in COVID-19 cases.
Ramaphosa said there has been a troubling increase in new cases, and the country is in its third wave. Having recorded 56,363 virus deaths, the country is considered to be the hardest hit on the continent.
The Numbers Don’t Add Up
But the nation of nearly 60 million has only recorded about 2,000 more COVID deaths than New York State, which has about 19.5 million residents, yet it is locking down… again.
TREND FORECAST: Prior to the COVID War, demonstrations were raging in South Africa as its economy was dragging lower and people were taking to the streets to protest the lack of basic living standards, government corruption, crime, and violence.
As with many other nations where there were demonstrations for many of the same reasons, when the COVID War was launched, the protests were prohibited.
Indeed, the economy of South Africa was in a long, downward trend. Just a month before the COVID War was launched, we wrote in the 11 December 2019 Trends Journal: “After ten years of flat growth, South Africa looks likely to lose its investment-grade status afforded by Moody’s.”
Last September, we reported that South Africa’s economy shrank by an annualized rate of 51 percent in this year’s second quarter, its worst performance in at least a century and the worst among any major economy at that time.
We note this because with the new round of lockdowns, these terrible economic conditions will further deteriorate. And, the worse they become, regardless of lockdown laws, protests will escalate… as will violence, as the government harshly cracks down on dissent.