South Africa's biomedical response has been exemplary, but it has failed to mobilise social movements essential for tackling public health crises.

There has been an exemplary biomedical response at the state level: the government acted swiftly to "flatten the curve"; it rolled out a sweeping programme of community screening, testing and contact tracing; and it put in place clinical facilities for palliative care.

Crucial food security interventions such as the South African National School Nutrition Programme - the largest of its kind of Africa - have been suspended, while other emergency food distribution measures have been beset by corruption, meddling and bureaucratic bungling.

One such sign was when the interim CEO of the Solidarity Fund, created to enable the private sector and civil society to support the COVID-19 response, announced the Fund would stop providing emergency food rations in favour of measures to "activate communities to do things for themselves".

That social movement for public health around the HIV/AIDS pandemic successfully linked poor people's demands for better medical care with demands to address the social and economic causes of inequality.