COVID-19: The South African experience

The coronavirus disease-2019 pandemic affected the countries differently. South Africa is a middle-income country with a struggling economy and a resource-constrained public healthcare system. Three aspects of the pandemic in South Africa are examined, the lockdown and its effect on personal freedoms, how health care resources were used and the novel stratification of health workers into vulnerability categories. It is a perspective written after experiencing the first pandemic peak in 2020.