{"id":482525,"date":"2021-04-12T16:07:50","date_gmt":"2021-04-12T14:07:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=482525"},"modified":"2021-04-12T16:07:50","modified_gmt":"2021-04-12T14:07:50","slug":"when-south-africans-expect-life-to-get-back-to-normal-after-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/482525\/when-south-africans-expect-life-to-get-back-to-normal-after-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"When South Africans expect life to get back to ‘normal’ after Covid-19"},"content":{"rendered":"

Expectations about when life might return to something like a ‘pre-Covid normal’ vary widely across the globe, according to a new World Economic Forum-Ipsos survey.<\/p>\n

The survey was based on the online responses of 21,011 adults from 30 countries around the world.<\/p>\n

It found that, on average, 59% of people expect something like ‘normal’ will return within the next 12 months.<\/p>\n

But there were significant differences in different countries. In Saudi Arabia, Russia, India and mainland China, over 70% of adults expect life will return to a pre-Covid normal within a year.<\/p>\n

By comparison, 80% of people in Japan think it will be longer, with more half in France, Italy, South Korea and Spain agreeing.<\/p>\n

South Africa also leans towards the more cautious end of the scale, with 49% of South Africans believing it will take longer than a year for things to return to normal. 36% believe life will return to normal in the next four to 12 months, and 15% believe things will be back to normal within three months.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Containment of Covid-19<\/strong><\/p>\n

Opinions on when the pandemic will be contained also closely matched opinions on a return to normal – suggesting that people believe the two to be closely linked.<\/p>\n

On average, 58% of those surveyed expect the pandemic to be contained within the next year. Some countries – India, mainland China and Saudi Arabia, for example – are more optimistic.<\/p>\n

But, four-in-five in Japan and more than half in countries including Australia and Sweden expect it will take more than a year for the pandemic to be contained.<\/p>\n

50% of South Africans believe that it will take longer than a year for Covid-19 to be successfully contained in the country.<\/p>\n

The survey also asked people about the pandemic’s impact on their mental health. An average of 45% of adults globally said their mental and physical health has become worse since the beginning of the pandemic.<\/p>\n

However, since the beginning of 2021 nearly as many say it has improved as those who say it has worsened.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

South Africa is expected to ramp up its Covid-19 vaccinations over the coming months, with phase 2 of the country’s vaccination plan now scheduled to begin on 17 May.<\/p>\n

In a media briefing last week, Health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize said that the country has now secured a combined 51 million jabs in the agreements that have been signed with various drug makers, aimed at 42 million people.<\/p>\n

Mkhize said the government is still working hard to procure more jabs to ensure that those who may be unaccounted for or undocumented, are also immunised to reach herd immunity.<\/p>\n

On Monday (12 April), South Africa reported 931 new Covid-19 cases, taking the total reported to 1,558,458.<\/p>\n

Deaths have reached 53,322, a daily increase of 66, while recoveries have climbed to 1,483,296, leaving the country with a balance of 21,840 active cases. The total number of vaccines administered is 288,408.<\/p>\n

\n

Read: Slow vaccine rollout means third-wave risk is still a reality in South Africa: economists<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Expectations about when life might return to something like a ‘pre-Covid normal’ vary widely across the globe, according to a new World Economic Forum-Ipsos survey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":460756,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[26,2237,1942],"class_list":["post-482525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-headline","tag-ipsos","tag-wef"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482525"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":482547,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482525\/revisions\/482547"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/460756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}