A senior opposition leader said that the lockdown—aimed not to prevent the spread of Covid-19 but to give the health services a window to prepare for it—was now doing more harm than good.

The national coronavirus lockdown has translated into a sharp increase in levels of poverty and malnutrition in South Africa. Because of that emerging suffering, some are already beginning to wonder if the nationwide restrictions are doing more harm than good.

The national measures being taken against the spread of the coronavirus in South Africa are unprecedented and are considered among the strictest in the world.

Though the ruling African National Congress party (ANC) has won the South African elections, it has done so with a dwindling support of the popular vote.

While a new black middle class has emerged, while the politically connected got rich, some even becoming billionaires, the vast majority of South Africans remain poor.

In Johannesburg, Obama gave what some commentators consider his most important speech since he vacated the Oval Office.

The “struggle era” in South Africa is ending.

The Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference welcomed the resignation as “long overdue.”

There have been warning signs for decades; now South Africa’s second-biggest city is racing to prevent a drought from throttling the economy and causing social unrest.

Although Mr. Ramaphosa is a relatively acceptable leader of the A.N.C. in the eyes of some opposition parties, his economic stance will put him in tension with the populist left Economic Freedom Fighters and many trade unions.