At a time when our society’s leaders have ramped up campaigns on avoiding large gatherings and superspreader events, hundreds of cars were parked inside Pretoria’s Daspoort Tunnel, blocking traffic in both directions while drunk and beligirent partiers raged on without a single face mask in sight.
Watch: Pretoria partiers throw bloc party inside Daspoort Tunnel
The 573-metre tunnel is an important route for motorists travelling between Claremont and Danville. However, recently, as reported by crime journalist Yusuf Abramjee, it hosted an illegal bloc party that saw hundreds of motorists breaking a ton of lockdown rules.
This video, showing a large crowd of partiers getting down and jiggy inside the tunnel has since gone viral.
Daspoort Tunnel Pretoria. #Covid19SA pic.twitter.com/pmDaMdBAr2
— Yusuf Abramjee (@Abramjee) December 22, 2020
Gauteng feels wrath of new Covid-19 strain
It has not been confirmed, at this stage, if the police have caught wind of the video and launched an investigation since it was posted. However, more worrying, is the total neglect the partiers displayed in not observing safety protocols in a province plagued by the resurgence of the Covid-19 second wave.
South Africa has already marked its highest daily death toll since the start of the pandemic, with 216 casualties reported in the last 24 hours.
As indicated by the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD), Gauteng currently accounts for 27.7% of the country’s total infections, the highest of all nine provinces.
#COVID19 UPDATE: A total of 35 844 tests were conducted in the last 24hrs, with 8789 new cases. We report 216 more #COVID19 related deaths, bringing the total number of deaths to 24 691. Click here to view report: https://t.co/UnRRRKfIga pic.twitter.com/zZ7lF2rZLd
— NICD (@nicd_sa) December 21, 2020
The region also contributes the second-most number of deaths from the 24 907 casualties recorded thus far. The progression of the new Covid-19 strain has worried South Africa’s leading scientists. It seems to be highly transmissible, more so than the first strain; and since its resurgence, the younger population has been affected greatly.
Uninformed youths, like the ones in the viral video above, are leading the spread of the second wave and without hints of stricter lockdown measures from the government, it’s unclear how South Africa will weather an incoming storm that threatens to wipe out a lot of lives.