1.1. Lockdown (noun) (lɒkdaʊn): The imposition of stringent restrictions on travel, social interaction and access to public spaces (Collins Dictionary, 2020)¹ On January 23rd 2020, the first lockdown in response to Covid-19 was initiated in Wuhan, China (Davidson, 2020). The lockdown placed restrictions on travel in and out of the province, cars on the road, public gatherings and people leaving their places of residence. As the pandemic spread globally, Italy and Iran, two of the hardest hit countries by the pandemic, also initiated national lockdowns by early March (Graham-Harrison, 2020). By the end of March, it was estimated that 1 in 5 people in the world was under lockdown (Davidson, 2020). Of these lockdowns, the largest lockdown in the world was in India (The Lancet, 2020).
Lockdown as a response to COVID-19
South Africa was among the first countries in Africa to impose a national lockdown (Dunford et al., 2020). The lockdown began on March 27th and was proposed for 21-days. Like many lockdowns across the globe, however, this Level-5 lockdown was extended to 35 days. The Disaster Management Act remained in place for the rest of 2020, with various aspects of lockdown such as curfews and public gathering restrictions remaining for the rest of the year. The lockdown rules are summarized in Annex 1 below (Republic of South Africa, 2020). From May 1, 2020 lockdown regulations were gradually adjusted according to different lockdown “levels”. As of the time of this publication (January, 2021), the Disaster Management Act still remains in place and various aspects of lockdown continue including a curfew, and restrictions on public gatherings. From March, the year 2020 became as much about the lockdown, as it was about the coronavirus. The “lockdown” entered our everyday experience and vocabulary in an unprecedented way. The City Lockdown Project in Gauteng was conceptualized and designed in this period in response to this unique moment, and sought to analyse the experiences of lockdown of a group of residents in Gauteng, South Africa.
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The word “lockdown” was announced as Word of the Year by the Collins Dictionary, which registered over a quarter of a million uses of the word in 2020.
