The sense that the government and scientists are working together to fight a threat is meant to instil in citizens confidence and hope and to encourage them to support the battle against the common danger. In South Africa, this unity lasted all of a few weeks.

Initially, the public debate rallied around the common effort. We don't know how most citizens felt because in a country divided into two worlds, most of the country is not heard. But, among those whose voices are heard, there were few, if any, dissenting voices when the government declared the state of disaster and then imposed a lockdown on 27 March 2020, three weeks after the first case was reported. Organised business pledged support for the campaign against the virus despite the fact that economic activity would be curtailed. This goodwill was enhanced by relief that the government was listening to ‘the science’ and was not pursuing a ‘political agenda’.

This support for official efforts to fight the virus was fairly common across the planet. What made it unusual in South Africa was that, for the past decade, the government and the debate has been at war and so the voices that are heard rarely if ever supported anything it did. The complicated nature of South Africa's divisions means that conflict within the ‘First World’ between the government and the insiders is suspended during national sporting events such as the 2010 football World Cup or the national rugby team's World Cup victories, the most recent of which had occurred only a few months before the lockdown. For a while, the debate seemed to have decided that the virus, too, required some temporary harmony prior to the resumption of hostilities.

This atmosphere prevailed despite the fact that restrictions were severe. The government's ‘risk adjusted strategy’ introduced five levels of lockdown, of which level 5 was the strictest – it began at this level. Like many other countries, it imposed bans on movement within the country as well as between it and other countries and closed all businesses except those which offered ‘essential services’. No movement outside homes was allowed unless the movers were essential workers or could show they were on their way to buy necessities or seek medical help.