PsySSA: COVID-19 Communiqué

16 March 2020

PsySSA has been closely monitoring the rapidly changing COVID-19 pandemic.  As is the case with all organisations, our primary concern is the health and well-being of our fellow South Africans, as well as our members. PsySSA, at its Council meeting on 14 March 2020, therefore appointed a COVID-19 Task Force chaired by Past-President Dr Ann D. Watts, the International Union of Psychological Science’s main representative for psychology at the World Health Organization (WHO). The Task Force will assist the Society’s responsiveness to COVID-19 and its impact on all of us, particularly from a psychosocial perspective. If the readily-available expert advice is heeded, panic and fear will be avoided and we can overcome this pandemic.

PsySSA commends the decisive and informed action taken by the President and the South African Government on 15 March 2020 in declaring a National Disaster and the steps implemented to deal with this. PsySSA will continue monitoring the COVID-19 scenario and will make the necessary provisions at forthcoming PsySSA events to comply with the directives of the South African Government, the Department of Health and WHO.

We urge all members to protect yourselves by following the directives of WHO in this regard (https://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus; https://www.epi-win.com), as well as those of our Government and Department of Health (http://www.nicd.ac.za).