The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) led by Julius Malema said on Friday that scientific evidence must inform the reopening of schools in South Africa, after President Cyril Ramaphosa announced a four-week suspension of classes amid rising Covid-19 cases in the country. 

The EFF condemned the resumption of classes while coronavirus infections surged as experimenting with the lives of children and teachers. 

“It is painful that children were sacrificed to this virus and subjected to the cruelty of inadequate PPEs (personal protective equipment) and poor infrastructure. To send children to schools during a deadly pandemic was homicidal, and to subject them to sanitisers with low alcohol content and lack of masks is tantamount to murder,” said EFF national spokesperson Delisile Ngwenya. 

“The distribution of inadequate PPEs to health workers and learners, for the purposes of corruption, must be condemned as a human rights violation. It is an unforgivable act that has resulted in the loss of life of front-line soldiers and jeopardising of the lives of children.” 

The EFF reiterated that the reopening of schools must not be based on the “assumptive gut feelings of compromised experts like Dr Salim Abdool Karim or political deliberations by the likes of (Minister of Basic Education) Angie Motshekga”. 

“Independent scientific and epidemiological evidence must inform the reopening of schools and this must be guided by advice from the World Health Organization (WHO). We will therefore monitor the behavioural patterns of the virus over the next few weeks, and current evidence does not suggest there will be a significant decrease in infections or deaths,” said Ngwenya.

The EFF said the four-week closure of schools announced by Ramaphosa on Thursday was “nothing but a public relations stunt” because no scientific modelling suggests that the upward curve of Covid-19 infections across South Africa will have flattened, making it safe for learners to return to class. 

“It is also extremely disappointing and reveals incompetence that Ramaphosa insists on an exhibition of a rapid rise of infections and the loss of life before he takes logical decisions and protects human life. His lack of foresight and decisive leadership will continue to result in pain and mass deaths while he and his cronies continue to profit off a global pandemic,” said Ngwenya. 

The radical opposition party pointed out that as of July 23 there were 408 052 confirmed positive Covid-19 cases in South Africa and 5 940 deaths. 

“These statistics are not an accident of history or solely due to the natural spread of the virus; rather, there has been deliberate mismanagement of the pandemic and a leadership collective that has pledged its allegiance to profit over human life. In his address, Ramaphosa boasts about a low mortality rate compared to other nations with high infection rates of Covid-19,” said Ngwenya. 

“We take this opportunity to warn Ramaphosa once again, as we have throughout this pandemic, not to be too confident around the mortality rate statistics.”