SACP calls for maximum compliance with COVID-19 preventative measures  

The South African Communist Party welcomes the revision of the measures announced on Monday, 14 December 2020 by President Cyril Ramaphosa to bring the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) under control in response to the rising tide of its second surge in South Africa. ‘We call upon every person in South Africa to protect life by complying with the revised regulations’, said the SACP General Secretary Dr Blade Nzimande. The SACP General Secretary also emphasised the importance of ensuring an adequate balance between saving life and livelihoods.

In societies where the capitalist mode of production prevails, the core of the ruling class of capitalist bosses is interested in making and maximising profits than in saving life and ensuring that production and trade lead to decent standards of living for the workers, their families, and communities.

The SACP is calling upon the working class—at the workplace, in institutions of learning, in townships, in informal settlements, in rural areas, and in other human settlements—to act more decisively as an enforcer of occupational health and safety standards to protect the supreme right to life. As commuters in taxis, buses, and other means of public transportation, the working class should act as a strict enforcer and an active adherent of COVID-19 preventative protocols. It is also important to ensure household and community compliance, while protecting livelihoods and clamping down on economic exploitation.

‘SACP structures and members at levels down to the grass-roots should play an active role in ensuring compliance to protect and save life’, said Dr Nzimande.  

As part of the world revolutionary working-class movement, the SACP is upon the World Health Organisation to make the COVID-19 vaccine universally accessible as a public good. We strongly denounce conspiracy theories against scientific vaccine development because such backwardness can do nothing but more harm than good. 1.62 million people died globally because of the deadly coronavirus disease, of whom over 23 000 died in South Africa.

We cannot afford the luxury of conspiracy theories amid what has been, and continues to be, the year of mass deaths because of COVID-19. To succeed, decisive regulatory intervention requires scientific breakthroughs from innovation, research and development, and production aimed at meeting the health and other material needs of the people.

Statement issued by the SACP, 14 December 2020