“Hospitals around the province are full. Both public and private hospitals are battling an increase in patients and a decrease in staff numbers as COVID-19 takes a deadly toll on overstretched health workers.”
“Warning South Africans to brace themselves as the country heads for the peak of coronavirus infections, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said that the outcomes are still better than the initial predictions that 20% of those who are infected would need hospitalisation.”
“Less than two weeks after schools reopened in South Africa, there are growing calls to suspend schooling as many schools record positive COVID-19 cases. ‘We have seen a rise in infections at a high speed in all provinces since the reopening of schools,’ said Kabelo Mahlobogwane, spokesperson for the Education Union of South Africa (EUSA). EUSA said it was concerned that the Department of Basic Education ignored warnings not to reopen schools until September 2020.”
“It remains doubtful that the SA Reserve Bank will start buying local corporate debt. The bank has indicated that it will be sticking to government bonds to help support liquidity in the primary market, and it already owns around R30-billion in state treasuries. There has been no indication by the monetary authority that it will expand its holdings any time soon.”
“With the majority of Grade 7 and 12 learners back at school, unions are cautioning that schools will feel mounting pressure with the return of other grades in the coming weeks.”
“These pre-existing patterns of adversity, combined with a fragile and fractured health care system, have left children extremely vulnerable when exposed to shocks such as COVID-19.”
“The substantial relaxation of South Africa’s COVID-19 lockdown measures from Monday, 1 June was probably both inevitable and the right decision. But with intensive care unit capacity in the Western Cape already stretched and infections in the province rising rapidly, one or two measures may need to be reconsidered.”
“A doctor at one of the Eastern Cape’s rural hospitals put on personal protective equipment, got into an ambulance and drove a critically ill COVID-19 patient to the Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital in Mthatha. This, while crippling staff shortages continue to ravage the province’s public health facilities.”
“The COVID-19 crisis is first and foremost a health and humanitarian crisis that we are all living through, which is likely to have lasting impacts on how we live. It is also likely to have a lasting impact, in the long term, on how we conduct our economic lives. In the short term, we need to urgently consider how we manage the economic impacts in a way that does the least long-term harm.”
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