Damned if you do, damned if you don’t

As grumbling against lockdown gears up, the SA government admits to holding back information from the public on the Covid-19 pandemic, saying it is doing so to avoid panic.

Moreover, the ban on alcohol sales during the lockdown was meant to prevent drunken fights, reduce domestic violence, stop drunk driving, and eliminate weekend binge-drinking so prevalent across South Africa.
The ban was based up WHO data:

• Avoid alcohol or keep drinking to a minimum as alcohol weakens the immune system.
• Alcohol can cause acute respiratory distress.
• Drinking reduces a person’s ability to cope with infectious diseases
• Drinking also increases the risk of domestic violence and child abuse.

The ban on cigarettes was based on similar data.
Instead, these bans have created an underground market of rampant deals. In Pietermaritzburg, KZN,

“it’s not only dodgy characters indulging in the goods offered. Those supporting it are normally law-abiding citizens and many professional people. A Weekend Witness investigation conducted this week, revealed a “dial-a-fix” network on social media with door-to-door cigarette and alcohol deliveries.
It took four minutes and 28 seconds for news reporter to find cigarettes. 

A must see webinar

For no holds barred presentation of a handful of issues behind the “end lockdown” grumbling, I recommend Daily Maverick’s recent webinar, “The Inside Track: A Special Covid-19 Discussion.”  Hosted by DM’s Mark Heywood with Prof Shabir Madhi, M.B.B.C.H. (Wits), FCPaeds(SA), Ph.D., Professor of Vaccinology at the University of the Witwatersrand. Prof Mahdi is also co-founder and co-Director of the African Leadership Initiative for Vaccinology Expertise (ALIVE). More on Shabir Mahdi.

Biggest take away? South Africans must take personal responsibility to socially distance, wear masks, sanitize, sanitize, sanitize…
That’s great advice for anyone, not just South Africans. The implementation?
Well, we’d all live on a different Earth IF taking personal responsibility was easy.

I disagree with some points Prof Mahdi makes. (I was one vote of 22 percent webinar audience – 1,700+ - informally polled who thought Lockdown should continue.) Nevertheless, he’s clearly not a “political animal” and does not parse or hide his truth to avoid potential political fallout.
He states:

• Continuing lockdown will not stop the wave of community transmissions from hitting South Africa
• Continuing lockdown will prolong the collateral damage
• Current strategy causes more harm as people with other illnesses – TB, for example, the country’s biggest killer - battle to access basic medical tests. There has been a 50 percent reduction in tests for TB and diagnosis has been delayed.
• Current government response is “setting us up for greater mortality from non-Covid related illnesses”
• Hospitals are starting to see cases of malnutrition
• Children’s futures are being placed in jeopardy by keeping the schools closed (Data suggests healthy children (18 and under) with no other underlying health issues, run little risk of infection.)
• The country’s chances to fight the spread of community transmission has been damaged by imposing lockdown before South Africa was ready to do mass testing.
• Results of tests take up to two weeks to be released. This allows the number of contacts that must be traced to skyrocket and creates impossible workloads for health workers.

South Africans should be proud of the quality of the country’s expertise and the straight talk from some of its experts. Prof Mahdi is about as straight talking as they come.

For an example of politics, political animals, and political-speak in action: “The Four Men Responsible For America’s COVID-19 Test Disaster”

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Another brief trip into the village today… and, still, people jammed together in lines waiting to access ATMs. Apparently, the government-promised supplementary child-benefit payments are slow in coming. This means anxious parents traveling back-and-forth into town to check bank balances.
For the duration of lockdown, the official monthly allowance per child has increased ZAR500 (US$27), from the usual ZAR400 (US$22). Only the funds aren’t quickly being dispersed into accounts.
Housing, feeding, clothing, educating a child on the equivalent of US$50 per month – while lockdown last.
Imagine having to return to US$22/month at the end of lockdown.

Word-on-the-street reports a confirmed Covid-19 infection in a health care worker from a local hospital.

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Mother’s Day under pandemic

Click to enlarge.

To mothers on Mother’s Day:

• Ode to Moms 
• The pandemic offers mothers something they’ll neve have again 

News blues…

Last thing last night, I checked Johns Hopkins site for latest numbers of confirmed Covid-19 cases. Sobering.
I expected by morning a number on or under 4 million. It’s worse: 4,025,175 - 32.5 percent of which are in the US.
Testing is the US’s latest political hot potato with Trump’s press spokesperson saying, “It’s ‘Nonsensical’ to Think Everyone Should Get a Coronavirus Test”.
Members of the Trump administration, meanwhile, are regularly tested. Two members have been confirmed with the infection and three are quarantined.
Numbers of confirmed cases in South Africa are rising too: 9,420 today, an increase of 525 overnight.

***

Former president Barack Obama, on a phone call with the Obama Alumni Association said:

“This election … coming … is so important because what we’re …battling is not just a particular individual or a political party… we’re fighting … long term trends … being selfish, being tribal, being divided and seeing others as an enemy. That has become a stronger impulse in American life… we’re seeing that internationally as well.”
“It’s part of the reason why the response to this global crisis has been so anemic and spotty. It would have been bad even with the best of governments. It has been an absolute chaotic disaster when that mind-set — of ‘what’s in it for me’ and ‘to heck with everybody else’ - is operationalized in our government.”
Mr. Obama has adopted a public posture of muted disapproval of his successor during his post-presidency, although he has spoken out at moments calculated to have high impact. In the weeks before the 2018 midterm elections, Mr. Obama decried “crazy stuff” happening at the Justice Department under Mr. Trump and warned that “our democracy is at stake.”
He has told friends he is deeply concerned that Mr. Trump, despite his recent stumbles, will be able to successfully leverage the bully pulpit of the presidency….

On a lighter note, enjoy photo essays:

• California surf shimmers with bioluminescence
• 'Sitting at home seems wrong': NHS coronavirus volunteers – a photo essay
• Animals during the pandemic

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Click to enlarge.

After weeding the garden yesterday afternoon, I sat on the grass and relaxed in the warm autumn sun.
Scruffy – the half blind, fully deaf, pee-on-furniture-prone dog – sat with me.
Embraced by grass, trees, water, insects, birds, it is possible (though not easy) to clear one’s mind of worries, to enjoy being alive, despite lockdown to feel intimately part of the world.
Awareness heightens clarity, too.
In my world, acting fruitfully on decisions means getting things done, moving forward, making progress.
In my mother’s world these days, decisions are talking points, not plans of action. Fruitless planning, not implementation, is her end point. To date, every agreed upon plan to ensure her health and safety, and that of this household, has been jettisoned.
Do I have the required fortitude?

Click to enlarge.

I’ll take this dragonfly as a good omen.
My camera was inside the house when it settled on a twig. Expecting it gone when I rushed for the camera, there it was, still posing.

Thank you, dragonfly.





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Hope Spots

Donald Trump and the Trump Organization have a new scam: Trump-branded face masks.
Trump’s reelection campaign manager tweeted images Thursday of “Keep America Great”-branded and “Trump-Pence”-branded face masks. (I'll bet they're made in China, not in America. After all, MAGA, and all that....)

The irony was not lost on many Twitter users, who pointed out the president persistently dismissed the threat of the coronavirus, leading to a severe outbreak in the United States that has claimed more than 75,000 lives. The production of these promotional masks seems a particularly absurd move given the administration’s failure to help provide adequate personal protective equipment for health care workers and Trump’s own refusal to wear a mask at events despite safety guidelines. 

C’est la vie Trump! Irony is not his strong suite. Instead, up is down, down is up… lie, obfuscate, fire the truth-tellers – and make as much money as you can, while you can, wherever you can, however you can. Damn the logic, morality, or consequences.

News blues…

Another Trump snippet: CNN news anchor/presenter Chris Cuomo Reveals ‘Ugly’ Reason Why Donald Trump Downplays Coronavirus Testing. “It is dishonest and destructive and it is done by design.”

For Trump, it was all about hiding the truth about the pandemic, which has so far killed more than 73,000 people nationwide. The United States has more confirmed cases than any other country in the world.
“Testing is truth because numbers are truth, and they want you to believe that COVID is going away faster than it actually it is because they believe the longer it is real, the worse it is for Trump and the election,” said Cuomo, who himself recovered from the virus last month. “The politics of forcing reopening is as obvious as it is ugly.” 

Covid-19 lurks
It was a matter of time before the numbers of South Africa’s confirmed infections – and deaths - began to climb, and double.

Times Live reports SA's confirmed Covid-19 cases increased to 8,895, a single-day increase of 663. There were also 17 new deaths reported, taking the toll to 178.
These were the biggest single-day increases reported since the start of the Covid-19 outbreak in the country.

Of the deaths, nine were from the Western Cape, there were three each in the Eastern Cape and Gauteng, and two from KwaZulu-Natal.
The provincial breakdown of cases on Thursday [May 7] was provided as:
• Western Cape — 4,497;
• Gauteng — 1,851;
• KwaZulu-Natal — 1, 253;
• Eastern Cape — 989;
• Free State — 133;
• Mpumalanga — 60;
• Limpopo — 43;
• North West — 42; and
• Northern Cape — 27.

Are your spirits, like mine, sagging?

Tough to remain an optimistic realist in the face of our world-as-we-know-it falling apart.
Change is afoot.
Under the circumstances, however, do we have leadership capable of ensuring equitable and sustainable change?
Will the coming change make our planet better for the less-than-privileged majority, or tighten the grip of a vastly over-privileged minority?

The Swamp
Every US politician seeking higher office promises to drain The Swamp and “root out corruption” in Washington, D.C.
Donald J Trump promised that, too.
Today, The Swamp of Washington, D.C.,  is more, not less, corruption-and-disease-ridden.

The phrase drain the swamp originally referenced the literal removal of water, replete with disease-carrying mosquitos and Egyptian crocodiles from Italy’s Pontine marshes outside Rome.
Italian dictator Benito Mussolini introduced the phrase, “drenare la palude.”
The good news? That marsh was drained between 1932 and 1934.
Take away? If it suits them, even dictators can bring about positive change.
The Donald? Hmmmm, don’t hold your breath. Positive change ain't his concern or his bent.

***

Hope Spot
On this lovely Saturday, Day 44, let’s celebrate Mission Blue’s Hope Spots.
Hope Spots are places critical to the health of our planetary environment.
Scroll down on this page for a map showing Hope Spots around the world.

In 9:47 minutes, discover Hope Spot Spitsbergen Island, in the Svalbard Archipelago. The 2,000 people-strong settlement of Longyearbyen is the northernmost inhabited place on Earth.
Watch ice divers face one of the most extreme effects of global warming.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Previous posts indicated the US Consulate in South Africa’s flip-flops regarding repatriation flights.
With communication difficult in my part of rural KZN, I enlisted a friend in California to research the status of commercial airline service.
My generous friend phoned the Turkish Airline office in San Francisco. Persistence won out over listening to one dead-end voice mail after another and, imaginatively, my friend pressed the correct phone pad number for the Complaints line.
He talked to an actual and informed human being.
Yes, Turkish Airlines appears to offer sporadic commercial flights from Durban’s Shaka International. A flight is scheduled from Durban to San Francisco via Istanbul at the end of May. However, that flight is not confirmed. It depends on lockdown.
Best wait-and-see, until, at least, mid-June.

That news momentarily lifted my sagging spirits.
Then, alas, spirits sagged again at the Times news about the “biggest single-day increases reported since the start of the Covid-19 outbreak in the country”….

Today, I’ll lift my spirits by creating a microcosmic Hope Spot: the garden and pond.


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“We’ve been Zucked!”

Post for Wednesday May 6  references The Donald’s reactions to The Lincoln Project’s latest ad, Mourning in America.
The saga heats up…

News blues…

The Lincoln Project recent email to subscribers:

…we've been Zucked: Facebook is now censoring the ad that made Trump lose his mind.
You're not going to believe this — not much shocks me these days, but even I had to see it with my own eyes.
But now, less than 24 hours later — as if on cue — Facebook has slapped a "false" warning label on our video, telling its users to beware…
it's no secret that Facebook has stood by and done little to nothing as lie after lie — from the Liar-In-Chief himself — runs wild on their platform.
(Oh, and let's also not forget the conspiracy theories, foreign disinformation campaigns and negligence that got Mark Zuckerberg questioned by the United States Congress. )
But, this? This is an entirely different and dangerous kind of collusion.

But, is it an entirely different and dangerous kind of collusion?
We are talking here about Trump administration that has, over just three years, epitomize a “different and dangerous kind of collusion”.

Mark Zuckerberg’s trend toward colluding with Trump only increases over time.

“…Mark Zuckerberg and Donald Trump appear to have struck a “mutual assistance arrangement” that will help the US president “get re-elected”, referencing Facebook’s willingness to continue publishing political adverts. 

Unfortunately, words, any words, uttered by George Soros, the billionaire philanthropist, are attacked, reviled, and undermined – increasingly successfully – by US hard right, nationalists, fear mongers, and the gullible. Soros is the hard right’s bogeyman.

Trump/Zuckerberg “mutual assistance arrangement”

• January 2020: President Trump says Mark Zuckerberg running for president 'wouldn't be too frightening
• December 2019: Mark Zuckerberg says there was nothing shady about secret meeting with Trump 
• November 2019: Trump hosted Mark Zuckerberg for private White House dinner
• April 2019: Mark Zuckerberg says he's 'confident' about 2020 election

***

On a different note, one of humane public service, I highly recommend Daily Maverick’s free webinar “The Dual Epidemics: Looking at the overlapping and interweaving of HIV and Covid-19”, hosted by Mark Heywood.
Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, discusses the lessons from the HIV pandemic that are applicable to Covid-19, whether Covid-19 presents a threat to people living with HIV-AIDS, how the spread of Covid-19 will impact Africa, how a vaccine, once created, will reach everyone who needs it, and the lessons from HIV that are applicable to the response to Covid-19.

***

A combination of events had police tightening lockdown in the KZN city of Pietermaritzburg.
Today was the deadline for a six-day long once-off allowance for interprovincial travel. Judging by the crowds, too many people left that to the last minute.

According the provincial police commissioner, since 27 March, at least 18,000 people have been arrested for violating Covid-19 lockdown regulations.

Street scene from Pietermartizburg,
May 7 2020
Click to enlarge.

Roadblocks manned by the army and the Road Traffic Inspectorate are responding to a high volume of complaints about non-compliance.

I suspect Pensioners’ Day swelled the crowds, too. Every Tuesday and Thursday people over 60 years old get 5 percent discount off purchases.
Who wouldn’t risk Covid-19 for such a deal?

***

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

I took a breath of freedom "outside the wire"* with a plan that was (I hope) lockdown compliant: seeking giblets for my mother’s dogs at the recommended butcher in “Little Lagos.”
Alas, dense crowds lined the street - no one could maintain social distance – and bringing home giblets to overfed dogs might be worth the risk of infection to some.
To me?
Not so much.

Back home, I noticed the dogs didn’t seem to mind I was giblet-free.
My mother explained their point of view: “They like Pet Mince now.”
What a relief! No dog would starve due to my selfish desire for safety!

While Pet Mince fills the dogs’ culinary breach for now, it does not mean I’m off the hook for locating a source of giblets.
Rather, it means I visit Little Lagos on non-Pensioners’ Day: Monday, Wednesday, or Friday.

(*The phrase "outside the wire" originated with US military troops locked down on military bases in Iraq during that disasterous invasion. Heavily armored troops went off base only to patrol local towns and villages. Their routes, the same day-after-day, made them frequent targets of attack.)

***

Yesterday I described an upcoming SAA repatriation flight to Dulles International in Washington, D.C. Today, I received an update from the US Consulate in South Africa:

Event:  The South African Ministry of Health confirmed 7,808 cases of COVID-19 within its borders.
South African Airways Flight
It was announced that South African Airways will be required to cease all operations on May 8. Unfortunately, due to that timeline, SAA informed us that they had to move their planned flight to the U.S. to repatriate South Africans to early this morning, making it impossible for us to put U.S. citizens on the outbound leg. We know this will be very disappointing news to many of you who had hoped to participate in this flight, as it is for all of us working to make it happen.
While we will continue to inform citizens of opportunities as they arise, we have no information on any other potential repatriation flights at this time.
 
We have no information on when commercial flights will resume.

This means that every repatriation flight mentioned in the last month by the US Consulate in South Africa has been cancelled.
A news snippet, however, might shed light.

The government [and public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan] is unhappy that SAA business rescue practitioners (BRPs) spent between R30m and R35m on American consultants, while it has not yet seen any plan to save the national carrier from total collapse.
Gordhan said the government also wanted the BRPs to reverse their decision to put a complete halt to all SAA flights on Friday, including planes that may be required to urgently repatriate South Africans stuck in foreign countries as the world battles the Covid-19 pandemic.
"What we've had in recent days is the announcement by the practitioners that all flights, repatriation or otherwise, will stop on May 8. … the department has had a discussion with the BRPs and there's now some indication of maybe some flexibility in this regard.

This is almost like the States. There, our fearless leader and his crew put out what appear to be definitive statements one day, contradict those statements the next day, then repeat the original statement on the third day.

To paraphrase the SAA flight captain, “Welcome to your flight. Nothing can go wrong… go wrong … go wrong….”


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