Southern African Alcohol Policy Alliance director Maurice Smithers says we could end up with an increase in Covid-19 infections.
The Southern African Alcohol Policy Alliance has urged the government to respond to the Covid-19 third wave.
Alliance director Maurice Smithers has more.
We’re saying the same thing that we said in December and Easter: if the government doesn’t take steps to control alcohol sufficiently to prevent the further spreading of the virus and to keep the hospital beds free, then we could end up as we did we in December; we could end up with a massive increase in infection rates.
That could have been avoided by simply introducing some measures that would have restricted access to alcohol but would not have necessitated a ban. Last year, because of the dramatic increase, there was a ban imposed and we would like to see a ban avoided if possible.
We don’t know what’s gonna happen in the third wave but if we around what is happening in other parts of the world, there is a very real risk that it could become bad. So what can we do to stop alcohol from contributing to it? That is our main focus.
Maurice Smithers, Director – Southern African Alcohol Policy Alliance