The effects of COVID-19 have been devastating to economies across the globe. This has been true in South Africa too where the unemployment rate has shot up to almost 33%. The suffering is visible. In every city and town one is struck by the numbers of queues of desperate people seeking help of all kinds.

Days after the announcement of the national lockdown the Human Sciences Research Council, the country’s science council for research on human behaviour and social conditions, initiated two different survey series to establish South Africans’ perceptions of the crisis.