Some of these, of course, were already in dire straits before the pandemic.
South African society has experienced a generalised and palpable sense of shared social anxiety, observable through the ever-present WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter messages of #RIP or #Restinpeace, and other such variations. Indeed, this permeating sense of social anxiety has been particularly acute on the days of the “#familymeeting”, that being the colloquial social media catchphrase describing when President Cyril Ramaphosa addresses the nation on the Covid-19 responses and action.