The Challenges of COVID-19 Pandemic and South Africa's Response 

Since the first reported case of a novel corona (COVID-19) outbreak in Hubei province, China, in December 2019, the COVID-19 cases have since then escalated in China and distributed to all the five continents, posing serious health burden and economic challenges to the global world. Consequently, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared it a global pandemic. The South Africa government, therefore, implemented a nationwide lockdown which was subsequently extended to curb the spread of the virus. However, due to the strict measures restricting human movements and economic activities, this poses serious economic challenges because most of the local businesses were closed down, which greatly reduced the GDP contribution of the local market. The impact of the closed down as a result of the lockdown especially affected the informal sector and unregistered businesses. In light of this, this study tries to understand the challenging impact of Covid-19 on South Africa's economy and government's response as well as to examine the survival level of small businesses in line with the unemployment rate. This paper is qualitative and data were primarily collected through secondary sources. Findings show that only corporate business owned by the rich and privileged remained open under the banner of offering essential services while informal small businesses were forced to shut down. It also finds that the measures to help chocking firms and informal businesses (both registered and unregistered businesses) were not part of the scheduled beneficiaries from the government rescue package.