South Africa’s old hand at a new pandemic: politics dictates the quality of response

Abstract

ABSTRACT South Africa has been the worst hit by Covid-19 on the African continent and is experiencing devastating consequences. The goal of this study is to look at the role of underlying socio-economic factors and the quality of government policy responses in mitigating the impact of Covid-19 in South Africa against the backdrop of a multi-decade HIV epidemic. In the first phase of our analysis, we look at South Africa’s HIV experience. This analysis, using national level yearly data, shows that government capability plays an important role in mitigating the socio-economic consequences of the HIV epidemic. In the second phase of our analysis, we test whether a similar pattern, regarding the role of government capacity in containing the impact of Covid-19, holds true at the subnational level. The results show that rather than the level of income and wealth being the most decisive factors, the ability of the government to mobilize and influence the population’s behavior is key to mitigating the impact of Covid-19 pandemic. With the arrival of several vaccines around the globe, these findings regarding the centrality of government capacity at the national as well as the subnational level have important implications for addressing the Covid-19 pandemic and future disasters.