(CNN) – South Africa is slowly emerging from one of the strictest Covid-19 locks in the world. As the risk of the pandemic loomed in March, his government sealed national borders, limited the use of public transport, and, to a debatable extent, banned the sale of alcohol for several weeks.
Government officials who have placed restrictions on alcohol consumption particularly reduced tension in the country’s hospitals and have hailed the effects as a political success.
However, the long-term effect of these strict measures is unclear. Elsewhere, the country’s liquor industry agencies say the industry has been devastated by the ban. Many industry employees took to the streets to protest the ban in July.
Temporary restrictions on alcohol consumption are back in vogue around the world, thanks to the coronavirus. Social estrangement has also particularly replaced drinking habits, although researchers believe it is too early to say whether the effect will be permanent.
South Africa is not alone in applying restrictions; Thailand and India imposed similar bans this year, while Kenya banned the sale of alcohol in restaurants for 30 days this summer. Restrictions on the intake of alcohol outdoors in the Spanish region of Catalonia and in the United Kingdom, the city of Manchester has banned drinking outdoors on the festive weekend from 29 to 31 August.
South Africa’s original ban came into force from March to June 1, but President Cyril Ramaphosa’s government re-imposed restrictions on July 12, raising the need to reduce pressure on hospitals for admissions due to alcohol food.
“It is important that we do not overwhelm our clinics and hospitals with alcohol-related injuries that may have been prevented,” Ramaphosa said in a statement at the time.
We therefore have that to maintain the capacity of the hospital will suspend the sale, distribution and distribution of alcohol with immediate effect.”
Since then, restrictions have risen again. The South African government says admissions and visits to traumatology hospitals fell about 60% of the initial ban. Admissions increased in the era between the two prohibitions.
“Talking to the other people in South Africa, one of the most moving things you noticed is significant relief in hospital admissions,” said Ian Hamilton, a senior professor of Substance Abuse at York University, on CNN.
But, Hamilton added, it was still imaginable to discharge illegal alcohol into the country, which undermined the restriction.
The restrictions caused a furore among many South Africans, some of whom took to the streets to protest when the ban was imposed and celebrated when it was lifted on 18 August.
Some liquor outlets were looted at the height of the ban, while online searches for homemade alcoholic beverages have increased, according to reuters news agency.
“The ban has had an impact,” Maurice Smithers, president of the Southern African Alcohol Policy Alliance, a rights organization, told CNN.
“There has been dramatic relief in admissions from alcohol-related injuries in hospitals. This would have included alcohol-based violence, gender-based violence, accidents, etc.
Smithers acknowledges that some of the decrease in hospital admissions was also due to situations in the general isolation period, as other people were less likely to need medicine because they stayed home.
Governments and local government have justified these restrictions with pragmatism: pubs and nightclubs have been linked to epidemics, as have many social spaces where distance is difficult.
Experts are divided on whether these transitional restrictions to others extend a healthier relationship with alcohol.
CNN has spoken to several experts who agree on one point: that the whole alcohol ban is unsustainable and the dangers are counterproductive.
“Alcohol bans, if viewed historically, have worked. The United States is an obvious example: the ban has worked. This increases the behaviour of criminals,” said Mark Leyshon, senior director of studies and policy at Alcohol Change UK, a UK charity. .
“A [full-time] ban is an unsustainable solution,” Smithers agreed.
“It’s a synthetic solution, unless you make the ban that can cause a lot of social problems.”
Smithers hopes that the prohibition of transience in South Africa may also allow officials to impose stricter regulations on alcohol in the future, as the general public would possibly be more willing to settle for them after suffering the closure.
Globally, studies suggest that alcohol consumption patterns are already becoming as other people adjust to life with Covid-19, depending on many points, such as elegance and age.
A survey through the International Alliance for Responsible Consumption (IARD) published in June found that 30% of respondents reported drinking less during periods of detention, while 11% reported drinking more. The survey attracted 11,000 respondents from nine countries. The research was surveyed from Australia, South Africa, Mexico, France, the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan and New Zealand.
Separate studies on British drinkers from the charity Alcohol Change UK and Opinium in the UK found that more than one in 3 Britons reduced their alcohol consumption during the pandemic, while one in five were fed more alcohol.
“In my opinion, there are two teams: there are moderate drinkers who have continued to moderate or even become abstinent locked up. [But] those who used to drink in fairly low grades now drink even more,” Hamilton said, discussing studies. Alcohol Change UK.
Hamilton added that it was too early to say whether the intake patterns that replaced the pandemic would last longer.
“The other younger people in the UK, even before the pandemic, were already reducing their alcohol use,” Leyshon told CNN.
“For many of us [the lockdown], it was a forced era in which other people had less access to alcohol and for some of us it may have been an opportunity to sit down and think about how we drink and why we drink.”
However, in the UNITED States and the United Kingdom, general retail alcohol sales increase the pandemic, suggesting that more people are drinking at home rather than in licensed premises such as restaurants and bars. this can pose a risk to fitness.
“In Europe, the UK and the US, we can see that alcohol retail is on the rise,” Hamilton said.
“The challenge of drinking alcohol at home is that other people take more steps and have less vigilance and control.” The educator stated that the challenge of excessive alcohol consumption and addiction is also a socioeconomic challenge, as other people from less prosperous settings are likely to be more affected by alcohol dependence and the monetary consequences of the pandemic.
“People have more time to drink,” he says. “And all the anguish of finance and jobs and tension in relations [during the pandemic]. All of these points will influence how other people drink.”
Although Hamilton does not ban alcohol, he hopes the wave of pandemic restrictions will make other people think about how they drink.
“At least it leads others to communicate about the drink, it takes us away from the complacency that exists around alcohol,” he said.
“The vast majority of other people enjoy a drink without any harm. But for this organization of drinkers who do it, it’s valuable to have [more discussion].”