MK veterans slam govt decisions on cigarettes, returning to school

The Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans Association (MKMVA) said in a statement on Tuesday government had made a terrible decision to lift the ban on the sale of cigarettes and urged for the the decision to be rescinded.

MKMVA spokesperson Carl Niehaus said while they supported the “excellent work” of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s team in the fight against the spread of Covid-19, they also opposed the pending opening of schools during the upcoming Level 4 lockdown.

“It is a medical fact that smokers are at a considerably greater health risk. The coronavirus infection being a respiratory disease, smoking directly impacts on the ability of our immune systems to resist infection and, once infected, our ability to fight the disease,” said Niehaus.

“No matter what lobbying and pressure the cigarette and tobacco industry in general mustered, it is our ardent belief that government took a terribly wrong decision to lift the ban on the sale of cigarettes,” Niehaus said.

On the opening of schools during the lockdown, MKMVA said while it understood that education must be one of the highest priorities and that the dangers of compromising or losing a whole academic year are very real, those pressures must always be balanced against the foremost duty of government to safeguard people’s lives.

“This can, and should, never be subjugated to anything else. It is with this understanding in mind that MKMVA urges our government to resist the temptation to reopen schools and tertiary education facilities at this still very unstable and precarious stage in the battle to contain the spread of the coronavirus,” he said.

He said at school, young people gathered in large numbers and in crammed classrooms where social distancing would be impossible.

“It boggles the mind that even the possibility of reopening schools and tertiary education institutions can be considered at this stage, because in reality it will transgress everything that government – and specifically our department of health – have been instructing us not to do.

“It defies logic that, on the one hand, government insists on, and enforces, a strict ban of social gatherings, but then considers gathering our children and young people in educational facilities,” he said.

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