The seizure of 600kg of cocaine at the Durban docks will have been mildly disappointing for the three advertising executives who had planned to snort 200kg each at their Christmas party. The people who shipped the drugs there, however, will be livid, especially since they now realise they should have labelled the stash as Covid pills from Cuba.

Just over a year ago, the South African National Defence Force revealed that it had brought a Covid treatment called Heberon Alfa R 2B across from the Caribbean autocracy...