Fear and stoicism where SA's first coronavirus case was confirmed

All roads leading to the manicured lawns of Hilton, home of the North  Face and Land Cruiser brigade, were paved with panic and frustration this week.

This after national health minister Zweli Mkhize dropped a bombshell that SA’s first confirmed coronavirus patient hailed from the KwaZulu-Natal village that boasts the most expensive private school in the country, Hilton College.

On Friday afternoon, usually a busy  time as residents prepare for sundowners and hobnobbing at weekend school sporting fixtures, hair salon chairs at the Quarry Centre shopping centre  were empty and a few masked shoppers scurried through supermarket aisles.

It was at this small shopping complex that patient zero — a 38-year-old father of two  — sought help at Dr Robyn Ann Reed’s practice on Tuesday for a persistent cough, fever and sore throat after returning from a ski trip in Italy two days earlier with his wife and a group of friends.

The GP recommended that her patient go for a swab test because of the spate of Covid-19 cases in Italy. 

Her instincts were on the nose —  two days later, the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) contacted the man, an accountant, to tell him he had   tested positive. 

He is now in an isolation ward at Grey’s Hospital in Pietermaritzburg while his wife and children are quarantined in their home in an exclusive gated estate, awaiting the results of their own NICD tests.

The confirmation of the first case in SA of the virus that has infected more than 100,000 people around the world  caused ripples of alarm and   anxiety among those  who have come into contact with the man.

Among them is  a great-grandfather who was looking forward to presents and a  family gathering on Friday as he blew   out the candles on the cake baked for  his 84th birthday. 

The  octogenarian is instead in isolation with his wife, because   they were  in Reed’s waiting room on the same day as the 38-year-old.

“Our family would have gone to see him with cake and gifts but he is in isolation with my mother,” his daughter said.  “And instead of celebrating his birthday, we are concerned that they may have been exposed to the coronavirus.”

• 18 - The number of people asked to self-quarantine as a result of patient zero in SA

• 55,866 - The number of patients worldwide who are said to have recovered after testing positive for the virus

—  in numbers

 His daughter did not  want to be identified because she said  she was already being criticised  on social media for her posts about the virus,   which had been perceived as “causing panic in Hilton”.

She said efforts to establish how much danger her parents were in had so far been fruitless and frustrating.

She called the NICD but no-one there would give her   any  information.

She  was referred to the national coronavirus hotline, which went straight to voicemail. When she eventually got through, she was told to visit a doctor.

“All we want to know is when was the patient in the practice so we know if my parents came into contact with him,” the woman said. “My father has serious respiratory issues. He was in the doctor’s rooms on Tuesday. No-one is panicking but we must be forgiven for being concerned.”  

 Shandre Kerr, 34, who grew up in Hilton and has been teaching in China for nearly three years, said it was ironic that she had left   the epicentre of the  outbreak unscathed but was now facing panic at home. 

“I’ve just been to the salon and they had a whole lot of cancellations just because of the case being in this area.  If you look in the shops, all the  sanitation items are sold out. I was here on Thursday and it was totally different, I think people are just staying at home.”

Kerr, who has been teaching near Shanghai, came back to SA a month ago  when schools in China went on holidays.

“You guys here are going to start dealing with what China initially went through three months ago. Before I came back we had a meeting at school talking about what might happen and how we should go about organising ourselves.”

Mbali Mazibuko, 30, who works at the  Quarry Centre, says she worries about  contracting the virus  on public transport.

“We’ve had swine flu, we’ve had listeriosis, so this too shall pass. There’s no use  getting hyped about this for nothing. I take public transport so I could get it at any time. But we will just have to wait and see how we can manage it.”

But her stoicism   is not  shared by all, as retail outlets struggle to meet   demand for gloves, disinfectants, hand sanitisers and face masks. 

A Spar employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the store had not been able to get  deliveries of hygiene products  due to the high demand  across the province.

Resident Nondu Zuma, who was wearing a mask, said: “We are feeling very scared because we found out that someone from our block came into contact with this virus. No-one has checked if we are infected but we are going to check because we want to protect other people. That is why we are wearing these masks.”