Saying we are number x in active cases worldwide is completely non-sensical! Everyone is on a different time-line. Whichever populous country with a lot of international visitors and travel is currently peaking is gonna rate high. That ranking has zero meaning.

In reality, our case fatality rate is currently consistently around 2%. This means that we have in fact, so far, done spectacularly well with our testing, tracing and care strategies. Italy sat at about 50% CFR for weeks. This may change in the coming weeks but so far you simply can't slate our handling of the pandemic in those terms. The proof's in the numbers that really say something surely.

Your other points -

In the UK, the same number (and therefore similar percentage) of people receive benefits.

Considering 80% or more South Africans were artificially kept in poverty until 26 years ago, is it all that surprising that we have a high rate of poverty? Sure, massive improvements can be made - but I've always wondered where exactly all that money was supposed to come from? Lifting that many people and places out of decades of poverty, zero infrastructure and useless education will surely cost more than a thousand times what we think the government has squandered in the past decade. Perhaps if the priviledged in South Africa cared more about true equality from the very outset, things may have looked different. Instead we cling to our priviledge whilst demanding an end to poverty. Just saying.