JOHANNESBURG – The coffin maker knew very well about death. The boxes were stacked in his workshop echoing like the bow of the boats waiting for passengers. COVID-19 was disrupting his business.
Then he moved into his house.
Casey Pillay’s wife, a midwife, gave birth to young children to coronavirus-positive mothers in Johannesburg, the epicenter of the pandemic in South Africa, the fifth in the world in several cases, and on the continent.
If she got it, they knew, it was only a matter of time.
When he became ill from the outbreak of cases in the field, he retired to the master bedroom. Pillay retreated to a nearby room. Scared, he slept a little and managed a few hours before dawn while his wife was battering some of the worst days of his life.
“I would literally be in eggshells listening to what was going on,” Pillay said Tuesday. “It happened from time to time, fully equipped, only to check important signals, if I needed oxygen. When he recovered, we sat down and spoke. I was scared because at one point she thought she was dying.
It was a blessing disguised, he said, to see someone with COVID-19 after so much exposure to death through his work.
Pillay, director of the coffin-making company, said about 10 colleagues were also infected. Now everything is fine. Its survival reflects the low number of deaths from COVID-19 in South Africa and Africa in general, as the continent appears to be defying disastrous predictions that the virus would cause a large number of deaths.
Life has returned to normal after an outbreak of infections in South Africa in June and July threatened to overwhelm public hospitals. Many of the more than a million graves that Gauteng province, the home of Johannesburg, once conspicuous, have been left unused.
However, the death toll from COVID-19, which has resulted in the deaths of more than 16,000 people in South Africa, nearly part of the continent’s more than 35,000 deaths, has been painful, and the total of more than one million showed that the deaths have re-reflected. .
“It’s been a couple of crazy, crazy, crazy months,” Pillay said.
The need for coffins increased and decreased as South Africa’s blocking grades changed, but overall, he said, “business has fallen. “
Under the strictest lockout measures, so few people were driving in South Africa that the country’s terrible rate of vehicle deaths fell. And the sale of alcohol was banned, “so other people didn’t fight, they didn’t kill others,” Pillay said. “Unfortunately, our entire business thrives on the deaths of other people. “
As the blockade subsided and other people “were not disciplined” and circulated without masks, the number of deaths from the virus increased. Now a sense of normalcy returns.
But COVID-19 replaced everything. The value of fundamental fabrics skyrocketed when “all Tom, Dick and Harry have become suppliers,” Pillay said. Suddenly, a box of gloves replaced his hands five times, and they all cut off. What once charged 80 rands ($4. 70) has been converted two hundred rand ($11. 70) or 220 rand ($13).
Pillay tried to keep his workshop open and when the orders arrived. “The unfortunate thing is that you have so much staff and machines and you can’t do a lot of things a day,” he said. sanding and solving polished handles.
And the total nature of bereavement in South Africa has changed. The government said COVID-19 funerals take a position without delay instead of waiting for the same weekend funeral.
“You had funeral homes that now pack on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays,” Pillay said.
A frame now had to be compatible with 3 bags of frames, then in the coffin and “go straight to the grave”.
As the number of others is limited to funerals and cemeteries, “other people went looking for the cheapest boxes,” Pillay said. Normally, even the most deficient in South Africa “want to do their best, some kind of spectacle, a right to show off for them “with quality coffins for their enjoyments.
Now there is little time to appreciate it and few more people to impress. Sometimes mourners can just park on the side of the road and watch the vehicle pass with the frame.
Pillay believes that the beginning of the southern hemisphere summer, as well as the relative youth of South Africans and the perceived recoverability of the immune system, will help their compatriots to the next wave of infections expected by fitness experts.
Again, that’s when, it’s not like that. Pillay is already seeing cases grow back in Britain, Spain.
“Yes, it’s imminent, ” he said. “Absolutely. “
———
Bram Janssen contributed in Johannesburg.
———
Track the AP pandemic on http://apnews. com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews. com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
24/7 policy of the latest news and events