Image: Aron Hyman
Cape Town was supposed to be on lockdown on Friday but with droves of homeless people, beggars, hustlers, refugees and ordinary residents on shopping runs it felt more like a Sunday after Christmas.
In the city centre, central city improvement district (CCID) staff tried in vain to get a group of young men off the street.
They were from Mannenberg, they claimed, and they were just on their way home.
A CCID officer told them that two people in the Western Cape had succumbed to the Covid-19 virus, and that they should please stay away from populated areas. pile of dead flowers, crates, and watering cans lay in front of the Cape Town flower market which is closed for what may be the first time in its history. Refugees who have been removed from outside the Central Methodist Mission in Green Market Square washed their hands and feet at a faucet usually only accessible to the flower sellers.
A barefoot teenage beggar in ragged clothes walked up to car windows of essential staff at a traffic stop, asking for money as though it was any other day.