Initial Responses to the ‘New Normal’ in South Africa: Challenges and Social Transformations during the First Hundred Days of COVID-19 Lockdown

Abstract

Since the first COVID-19 case was confirmed in March 2020, South Africa has quickly adopted strict measures to contain the infection. It includes mass testing, an economic relief scheme that amounted to 10% of its GDP, and a lockdown. The perceptions and reactions of people in South Africa to these measures vary according to their situation, such as job, economic status, and nationality. However, people generally follow this new strategy for survival, despite the difficulties and inconveniences caused by restrictions. But how? This study examines how people in South Africa responded to the pandemic and the government’s measures during the first 100 days of the lockdown by taking the following examples: (1) the persistence of informal businesses under the regulations, (2) restaurants working for the communities while their businesses were forced to shut down, and (3) the judicial procedure as a means of raising voices. The discussion argues how government measures had formed a ‘one standard’, which risked defining people as illegal and dividing people easily, and how people’s actions worked to supplement the incomplete government scheme by offering support to those who were spilled over from the scheme and suggesting amendments.