Two years since South Africa’s first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, the team at South Africa’s leading satirical news show, Politically Aweh, takes stock of the government’s handling of the crisis in a new video presented by rising star, Céline Tshika.
A slow response from provincial health departments and an already failing public healthcare system are highlighted as key factors which hampered South Africa’s ability to save lives.
“The local version of the epidemic has been extremely severe and a lot more people have died relative to many other settings with an equivalent population,” says health and social security systems specialist at Wits University, Prof Alex van den Heever. “So South Africa is one of the hardest hit countries.”
Meanwhile, health workers' experiences of working on the frontline are made real by testimony from Maverick Citizen journalist, Estelle Ellis, who covered the pandemic in the Eastern Cape: “There were some people in the smaller hospitals who told me they would go off to hand over to night shift, and then when they came back for their morning shift, everybody in the ward they looked after was dead.”
The show’s trademark format of satirical commentary interwoven with expert analysis makes for engaging viewing. Viewers are left with a deeper understanding of the degree to which lives could have been saved had the government acted faster on treatment and the vaccination rollout.
The healthcare system is also put into historical context with animated graphics and a look back at South Africa’s pre-existing health challenges.
Previous videos on the channel have also explored the impact of the coronavirus pandemic in South Africa, including human rights abuses committed during lockdown, and the crippling effects of the lockdown on South Africa’s creative industries.
Watch Politically Aweh full episodes on YouTube, and follow the show on social media @politicallyaweh: Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook.
View behind the scenes photos from the episode shoot here, and still images from the video here.
