Africa - In South Africa less lockdown but the ban on smoking and drinking remains

South Africa is easing its very strict anti-coronavirus lockdown but, for various reasons underlined at the highest level, it is keeping in force two calls that characterized this southern quarantine: the prohibition on buying alcohol and cigarettes.
    The circumstance is underlined by the New York Times website recalling that the two prohibitions are part of "one of the strictest" confinements imposed on the world. The lack of loosening on tobacco was justified by a minister of the Cyrill Ramapahosa government with fears that smoking could favor coronavirus. Furthermore, according to the head of cooperative governance, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, "the ways in which tobacco is sometimes shared do not allow for social distancing".
    Under attack from the alcohol industry, it was President Ramapahosa himself who defended the other ban by claiming that alcohol is "an obstacle to the fight against coronavirus": according to him "there are proven links" with "crime violent, road accidents and other medical emergencies at a time when all public and private resources "should be destined to treat the people infected with Covid-19, which in South Africa are almost 9,000 and have caused at least 178 deaths. The government has also associated drinking the "risk of domestic violence" during prolonged forced isolation of families, recalls the NYT implicitly referring to the confined spaces often represented by the homes of the poor.
    And, in reaction, a black market is emerging for both genders with the technique of selling only to the friends of those who trust us.