“’The third wave remains stubbornly in our midst, with a resurgence moving decisively from Gauteng to coastal provinces,’” Health Minister Joe Phaahla said during the weekly COVID-19 update.”
“After recent looting and arson in parts of South Africa partly derailed the government’s efforts in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, data on Friday showing a downward trend in new infections and an upward trend in vaccinations nationwide has brought some consolation.”
“South Africa is on the cusp of a third COVID-19 wave, with some provinces already there. The country hasn’t vaccinated nearly enough people for its vaccination roll-out to make a difference to the potential severity of this wave, experts have warned.”
“Maria van Kerkove, an infectious disease epidemiologist and the WHO’s lead on COVID-19, told media on Monday, 10 May that ‘there is some available information to suggest increased transmissibility of the B.1.617. As such we are classifying this as a variant of concern at a global level.'”
“Statistics South Africa’s quarterly labour force survey found that in the first months of the hard lockdown, 2.2-million people lost their jobs. The country’s labour market lost about 200-million working hours between the first and second quarters of 2020. This, the economists’ report notes, is equivalent to more than 4.4-million weekly working hours.”
“South Africa has secured enough vaccine doses to vaccinate 46-million people against COVID-19, but the agreements to get shots into the country come with a catch.”
“With global efforts to achieve inclusive economic growth, amid the pandemic, South Africa, like other developing countries, has the opportunity to be at the forefront of an accelerated shift towards broadly adopting circular economy principles, sustainable consumption and production practices, resource efficiency and cleaner production.”
“Current vaccine makers would still need to be willing to share their knowledge with new producers. But no country that invested in COVID-19 vaccine production made this kind of knowledge sharing, often called technology transfer, a requirement of their funding, at least to the public’s knowledge.”
“‘Raising capital is one of the challenges we faced when we started up,’ Biovac chief executive Morena Makhoana says.’The second challenge that we had, but subsequently overcame, is convincing large multinationals to partner with an African company.'”
“The health department has committed to vaccinate 40-million South Africans. But even with the new roll-out strategy of Johnson & Johnson jabs, this might take longer than anticipated.”
A hub for information, analysis, and the global response to COVID-19’s impact on Africa