By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Government said it would reinstate efforts to trace the contacts of people infected with coronavirus after a backlash over plans to scrap the measure.
The health authorities said Thursday they would stop contact tracing everywhere except places like prisons and schools, as they believed most of the population had already been exposed to the virus through vaccination or infection.
But on Tuesday Department of Health Director General Sandile Buthelezi said in a media statement that, “in line with the principles of transparency and openness, the department has decided to put the implementation of the revised policy changes on hold, while taking all additional comments and inputs received into consideration.”
It did not say why that decision had been made, only that a new version of the rules would be issued “once all additional inputs and comments have been considered”.
“This means the status quo remains, and all prior existing regulations with regards to contact tracing, quarantine and isolation remain applicable,” the department said, somewhat confusedly.
At the time that statement was issued, the status quo was actually that only people showing symptoms of Covid-19 were subject to restrictions on their movement.
Under the rules that were in force for those five days, those who tested positive for the coronavirus but showed no symptoms were asked to do only two things: self-observe for five to seven days for the onset of symptoms, while “avoiding” large groups of people and being careful to follow the mask and social distance rules that apply to everyone, all the time.
The implications were laid out unequivocally in a FAQ published on the government’s SACoronavirus website on 24 December.
Meanwhile, there was no contact tracing “except in congregate settings and cluster outbreak situations or self-contained settings”, such as prisons. The contacts of an infected person would not be tested, and were expected to “continue with their normal duties with heightened monitoring” – which would keep health workers at work even after an exposure event.
The rules that lasted five days were based on a 16 December advisory from the Ministerial Advisory Committee (MAC) on Covid-19.
South Africa is officially the most affected country in Africa, with nearly 3.4 million positive test results and more than 90,000 deaths from a population of 59 million.