The rand fell to its weakest level against the dollar in more than two months as protest that started with last week’s arrest of former president Jacob Zuma spread, weighing on the outlook for an economy already reduced by the outbreak of coronavirus.

The violent protests shut down businesses and disrupted transport networks in the nation’s two richest provinces, Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal. Zuma was sentenced to 15 months in jail for defying a court order to testify at a graft inquiry. The riots added to disruption sparked by the extension of a pandemic lockdown that’s hurting businesses and has robbed many people of wages in a nation with an unemployment rate of 32.6%.

“It is difficult to tell which is the greater emergency in South Africa right now: the riots, which have resulted in significant property damage, looting and affected the movements of goods along an important trade corridor, or the continued spread of Covid-19,” Siobhan Redford, an analyst at Rand Merchant Bank in Johannesburg, said in a client note. “It will be important to see the government take action.”

The rand declined 1.4% to R14.47 per dollar by 14:18 in Johannesburg, heading for its weakest level since April 30.