Popular organisations and the government both moved rapidly in mid-March to respond as the coronavirus pandemic hit South Africa. However, the country today has the fifth-highest number of Covid-19 cases in the world – over 420,000 on July 24 – and the virus continues to spread, posing a challenge to the fragile, technocratic and neoliberal government on the one hand and social movements on the other.

We are in conversation with Society Work and Politics Institute of the University of the Witwatersrand Tasneem Essop and active in the C-19 People’s Coalition about this matter.