This newsletter is called “Dispatches from Gauteng,” after the South Africa province that’s home to Johannesburg, where I’ve been staying for almost a year. While I’ve been in Gauteng when I’ve written many of these dispatches, none of them have actually be about Gauteng.
This week, I’ve got something a little different. A dispatch from Gauteng about life in Gauteng – and the rest of South Africa – now that the country is under a 21-day lockdown aimed at slowing the spread of COVID-19.
Ironically this dispatch from Gauteng didn’t originally appear on Dispatches from Gauteng, instead I wrote it for MarketWatch's excellent Dispatches from a Pandemic series, you can read it here: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/police-used-rubber-bullets-to-disperse-people-lined-up-outside-a-grocery-store-as-south-africa-hunkers-down-coronavirus-will-hit-poor-residents-hardest-2020-03-31?mod=dispatches-from-a-pandemic