THE CARNAGE OF CORONA

Job losses could amount to 500 000, with small- and medium-sized companies hardest hit.

south Africa’s economy will contract severely this year as the impact of drastic global measures to contain the spread of Covid-19 tips the entire world into a recession and raises the risk of a depression, which is a severe economic downturn that lasts for several years.

The decision to put the entire country into a three-week lockdown from 26 March was taken to prevent a humanitarian disaster well beyond the scope of SA’s health sector, which is ill-equipped to cope if the disease spreads into poor, densely populated areas where people are the most vulnerable.

Lockdowns had already been imposed in all of SA’s main trade partners – the US, Europe, and the UK – following China’s success in containing the pandemic with restrictions that other countries initially viewed as too draconian in Wuhan province, the epicentre of