{"id":555878,"date":"2022-02-07T08:52:13","date_gmt":"2022-02-07T06:52:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=555878"},"modified":"2022-02-07T08:52:13","modified_gmt":"2022-02-07T06:52:13","slug":"big-problem-with-south-africas-lockdown-rules-ceo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business-opinion\/555878\/big-problem-with-south-africas-lockdown-rules-ceo\/","title":{"rendered":"Big problem with South Africa’s lockdown rules: CEO"},"content":{"rendered":"

The government has made sweeping changes<\/a> <\/strong>to many of the remaining Covid-19 restrictions in South Africa with one notable exception – places of work.<\/p>\n

Writing in her weekly open letter, Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) chief executive Busi Mavuso notes that under the updated regulations, anyone without symptoms can effectively live life as normal with no testing or isolation requirements. Schools are also back to normal with no social distancing requirements.<\/p>\n

However businesses are still, on paper, required to do many things that are now clearly unnecessary, she said.<\/p>\n

“There are needless routines like maintaining registers of everyone on-premises and routinely deep cleaning premises at great expense – despite there now being a scientific consensus that surface transmission of Covid-19 practically never happens.<\/p>\n

“Businesses are still notionally required to minimise the number of people at work through rotation and staggered hours and those with over 50 employees must provide reports to the Department of Health about vulnerable employees and those identified as high risk at catching the virus.”<\/p>\n

Employers are also to ensure social distancing of 1.5 metres or put in place physical barriers between employees and to work with a mask even when distanced. In addition, businesses are mandated to screen for symptoms every time an employee arrives at work.<\/p>\n

“South Africa is becoming an outlier in workplace regulations. The UK has now dropped all regulations in workplaces, with people no longer advised to work from home, social distance or wear masks indoors. Denmark is the first European Union country to lift all Covid restrictions, but Italy, Switzerland and Finland are following,” Mavuso said.<\/p>\n

“Certainly, these countries have far higher vaccination rates than we have yet achieved, but given our high level of immunity, is South Africa any less prepared? Also, given that employers can drive vaccination levels among employees, lifting restrictions and allowing people to fully return to work could well spur vaccination levels, particularly if employers impose vaccine mandates.”<\/p>\n

South Africa’s unemployment crisis and desperate need for economic growth make it unacceptable to delay loosening restrictions any longer than necessary, Mavuso said.<\/p>\n

“I am deeply concerned that the failure of the government to relax workplace restrictions in line with the relaxations in other spheres of our lives, based on the same evidence, reflects that the economy simply isn\u2019t paid due attention.<\/p>\n

“Employers should in all circumstances ensure that their employees are able to work safely, but many of the Covid-19 measures they are currently compelled to do is a pointless cost to them. Plus, they are unable to get back to full operation with a full staff complement which certainly harms employment levels.”<\/p>\n

\n

Read: Updated lockdown rules for schools in South Africa \u2013 including in-school vaccinations<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Government has made sweeping changes to many of the remaining Covid-19 restrictions in South Africa with one notable exception – places of work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":390201,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[15351,26],"class_list":["post-555878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-opinion","tag-blsa","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555878","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=555878"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":555924,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555878\/revisions\/555924"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}