“Hugging, kissing, a thing of the past!”

Ramaphosa eases lockdown to level 3 – for parts of the country - as of end of May!
While some suggest the president “was vague and uncertain”,  my standards aren’t as high. After all, compare the US president’s demeanor … and that of the guy who was president prior to Ramaphosa.
The current president’s update was, for me, a pleasure to see and hear.  Finally, a president who is presidential! And humane. And who admits failures – and apologizes for them.
Too bad he said, “hugging and kissing is a thing of the past.”
If the opportunity presented, I would hug and kiss him for the difficult challenge he's attempting to confront!

Water, water, not everywhere

Lack of access to safe or reliable water is reality for 1 in 3 South Africans, about 20 million people. Photo essay presents views of life for too many South Africans.

Imagine a dwelling for a family of, say, five South Africans with no running water and no indoor plumbing in a locked down township, informal settlement, or rural area.
Need water to drink, cook, bath, and wash hands to stay free of Covid-19?
Carry a container to the nearest communal water faucet (compromising social distancing), fill the container, carry it back to the house. (FYI: 1-gallon of water weighs 3.6 pounds; 1-liter weighs 1 kilogram.)
Need to pee or poop? 
Walk to the nearest communal long-drop (ditto on compromising social distancing), walk back to your locked down house, and wash your hands using the household’s precious water.

© Elitsha 
Click to enlarge

South Africa’s water supply was the topic of Daily Maverick’s webinar, “Water Wars: Access to water in post-Covid South Africa.”
Hosted by Mark Heywood with Xhanti Payi - economist and head of research at Nascence Advisory and Research - and Simon Gear – a leading South African climatologists and a national authority on global warming and green issues.

Takeaways:
South Africa faces overlapping crises: climate change (last year, Cape Town and the Cape metro area - population close to 5 million – run out of water); health and social welfare, and, now, Covid-19 co-morbid with virulent TB and the highest HIV rate in the world (7.7 million people in South Africa live with HIV).

Just do it!

Decades of corruption and the mismanagement of public funds has weakened the Department of Water and Sanitation’s ability to deliver access to safe and reliable water.

Minister Lindiwe Sisulu denies that access to water is an issue in South Africa, but her team has been forced to draw up emergency plans to deliver water to those most in need during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is time to make safe, running water an everyday reality for everyone, always.

Amnesty International urges signing their petition to encourage Minister Lindiwe Sisulu.

News blues…

Is the coronavirus mutating and becoming more contagious?  A recent study claims a new dominant strain of the virus could spread faster than the original. (Could does not mean will.)

Day 19, April 19, I predicted it wouldn’t be long before Covid-19 presented the perfect reason to release Trump protégés and current inmates from jail. Three weeks later:

• “Paul Manafort, convicted felon and former campaign manager to President Donald Trump, has been released to home confinement amid concerns over the spread of coronavirus in prisons.
• Michael Cohen, Trump's former lawyer and longtime fixer, currently locked up at FCI Otisville in New York, “will be released from federal prison  to serve the remainder of his sentence in home confinement amid the coronavirus pandemic…. He will remain under quarantine for 14 days before he is released.”
• Harvey Weinstein, convicted rapist, contracted Covid-19 in mid-March at Wende Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison east of Buffalo, NY. He’s being held in the prison's residential mental health unit, where he remains on suicide watch. (Not a Trump protégé.)
• Bill Cosby will not be granted an early prison release. “Mr. Cosby is not eligible for release under Gov. Wolf’s order since he was convicted of a violent offence (aggravated indecent assault) and was deemed a Sexually Violent Predator.” (Not a Trump protégé.)

No one should be exposed to Covid-19. But…will these felons report back to prison after the pandemic?
Enquiring minds want to know….

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Yesterday’s intruder sent me on a search of crime statistics since lockdown. Initially, there was a drop in crime:

Attempted murder cases dropped from 1300 to 443, rape cases fell from 2908 to 371, assault GBV cases decrease from 11 876 to 1758 and aggravated robberies fell from 6654 to 2022.
Carjacking crimes decreased 80.9 percent, robbery at non-residential premises decreased 65.5 percent, robbery at residents’ premises decreased by 53.8 percent. 

Then, alas,

The first week of level 4 restrictions has seen vehicle recovery activities more than double compared to the lockdown extension figures, representing a six-fold increase from the first week of lockdown to figures that are now only 35 percent lower than pre-lockdown averages. Vehicle crime activities are set to rise even further, back to the same levels or even higher as South Africans return to work and criminals resume their operations. 

On the other hand, neighborhood monkey incursions continue unabated.
Like troops of baboons, monkey troops post sentries to ensure youngsters are safe. Today, by mid-morning, the sentries had declared the zone safe and the troop, youngsters and all, had infiltrated the ‘hood.
My so-so video skills captured monkey antics, including an active three-legged monkey.

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Whither lockdown?

(c) The Week
Click to enlarge

My experience of lockdown is benign inconvenience and self-enforced psycho-emotional pause; can’t swim or walk, 14,000 miles separating me from my immediate family and houseboat home, can’t book a return flight, and little to no one-on-one intellectual stimulation. In other words, except for feeling constrained, my situation is comparatively cushy.
Within a 25-mile radius of my location, people have it far worse.
Some South Africas advocate:

A “smart lockdown …targeted to protect the elderly and those with health conditions that put them at higher risk…focused on geographical areas or hotspots where the virus is uncontained. [And] stop the police and soldiers from abusing, assaulting and even killing citizens who break the lockdown laws. (It is striking to see their new-found enthusiasm for checking vehicles and stopping people from shopping or working – an enthusiasm that lacked when it came to serious criminal offences prior to the lockdown.)

Other South Africans “warn that we should not allow our freedoms to be removed during the national lockdown.

“We must ensure that the economic rules are rational and I think that a lot of the decisions that have been taken don’t pass the test of rationality, what you can buy, what you can’t buy, doesn’t work… the general appeal for reasonable conduct that extends to the police and army. Also, the idea that you can only exercise for three hours a day … none of this passes the test of rationality … we need voices to speak to the National Command Council and ask …that rationality be the order of the day [with] the objective … to prevent the spread of the infection and illness.”

Confusion reigns as health experts, politicians, and economist offer differing views. 
In the United States yesterday, Dr Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and White House health advisor quarantined for the next two weeks, addressed US Congress from his home. He's

… worried some states are prematurely reopening businesses and may have ‘little spikes’ in coronavirus cases that erupt into full-blown outbreaks.
Fauci’s comments come as the virus continues to spread across the United States, infecting more than 1.3 million people and killing at least 80,684 as of Tuesday morning … health officials say the true number of cases and deaths is likely much higher as some people infected with the virus go undetected.

My cushy position allows me to follow the advice that best protects peoples’ health and prospects for health, safety and survival. For people really under the gun, it's a tougher call.

South Africa now has the highest rates of confirmed infections on the continent:

Of the 11,350 cases detected so far, 97 percent have occurred in four of the nine provinces, with Cape Town and the surrounding Western Cape province accounting for 54 percent.
The numbers may be skewed by varying testing and screening approaches and capability.
The government is still reviewing its virus response… “There are very different stages that different parts of the country are in,” Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said in a televised address. “There are areas that have shown no new patients, no new cases, and therefore we have to approach the issues and levels very differently.”

Latest numbers weigh in
Worldwide confirmed cases: 4,262,055 Deaths: 291,965
South Africa confirmed cases: 11,350 Deaths: 206
US confirmed cases: 1,369,685 Deaths: 82,375
Sweden: confirmed cases: 27,275 Deaths: 3,315
Russia confirmed cases: 232,245 Deaths: 2,116
Russia’s numbers have risen dramatically and, currently, are second only to the US.
Sweden refused to institute a lockdown or stay-at-home.

Sweden's controversial plan to deal with the coronavirus allows most people to go outside, visits bars, restaurants, and shops, and keep life relatively normal as long as they try to stay distant from each other.
Not everyone in Sweden is happy with the approach. But even as deaths rise, the majority seems satisfied.
A poll this week showed that just 11 percent of people in the country said they did not trust state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell, who is leading the strategy.

As you mull your thoughts on easing lockdown, keep in mind:

As governments around the world plan to loosen restrictions imposed to contain the coronavirus pandemic, some countries have reported a resurgence in cases — prompting fears that a new wave of infections is imminent.
… several Asian countries including China and South Korea where the coronavirus first hit, have experienced an uptick in cases after restrictions were eased. In some instances, authorities have had to reimpose measures that restrict interactions between people to once again fight the virus spread.
Public health experts — including those at the World Health Organization — have for weeks warned authorities against lifting containment measures too early, which could cause a rebound in new coronavirus cases. Meanwhile, investors and analysts said another round of lockdowns would exacerbate the damage already inflicted on the global economy.

Whackjobery unchained – cont’d…

Online poopaganda* and poopagandists* - including those of the Make America Great Again (MAGA) persuasion – “are finding out what happens when political speech collides with misinformation rules during a global pandemic” : you get shut down.
*poopaganda – a quasi-genteel term (thanks, Andy) for virulent bull-s**t “truthiness” masquerading as self-empowering info.
*poopagandist – one who perpetuates poopaganda and then complains that social media is trying to silence all conservative voices.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

An intruder yesterday afternoon entered at least three neighborhood gardens. Our garden was the last and as he ran, six neighborhood women yelling at him, he shouted, “People are chasing me, they want to kill me.”
I saw no one pursuing him.
Did he mean we six ferocious ladies?
Three of my mother’s dogs barked from the safety of the upper verandah. Deaf Scruffy slept through the incident. Two senior mutts pricked up their ears but elected to remain on the bed.
The gate at the back of the garden is looped with razor wire that offered no obstacle. The intruder scaled it and disappeared into the brush.
After calling the security company - “someone,” I was told, “was on the way” – I checked the fence. The razor wire was intact with no torn fabric or bloody flesh on the barbs.
No one from the security ever arrived.
Life under lockdown resumed.
For now.

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Going viral

Within hours of British comedian Matt Lucas spoofing PM Boris Johnson’s recent public address, Lucas had 2.8 million views and 141,000+ likes on Twitter. One viewer stated, "This is actually clearer than what Johnson said."
To date, Boris Johnson’s address has garnered 49,000+ views and jokes about Lucas' message being easier to understand.
Hmmm, Johnson's fidgeting body language, rhetoric, and presentation didn’t quite nail what he attempted to emulate: “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”

Whackjobery unchained…

Beware these discredited online vehicles of poopaganda* :

• The 26-minute “documentary,” Plandemic: The Hidden Agenda Behind Covid-19 circulating online (not linking to it) “promotes a number of dangerous falsehoods, including that wearing a mask can make people sick” and that the novel coronavirus was purposefully created in a laboratory.
• Anything produced by American whackajob Alex Jones, and most recently, “BREAKING! President Trump Sidelines Fauci/Birx…”

*poopaganda – newly minted , quasi-genteel term (thanks, Andy) for virulent bull-s**t  “truthiness” masquerading as self-empowering info.

Whither lockdown?
The SA government has admitted to holding back information from the public on the Covid-19 pandemic, saying it is doing so to avoid panic.
What? Adults must be protected from the truth rather than be encouraged to face it and still act  responsibily? Patriarchy in action!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Another brief trip into the village today revealed people still jammed together in long lines waiting to access ATMs. This because of too-slow deliveries of the government-promised supplementary child-benefit payments. Anxious recipients must travel back-and-forth from home into town to check bank balances.
Addendum to yesterday’s post re official monthly child allowance:

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa recently announced a significant package of social and economic measures to address the fallout from the country’s COVID-19 lockdown. The package includes a R50 billion increase to the value of existing social grants, a new grant and delivery of food parcels to poor households. All will last for six months.

The supplementation of the grants raises the child social grant (paid to the caregivers of around 12.5 million children) to R740 per child in May 2020. From June to October 2020, child social grants will be decreased to their original amount (R440 per month) and caregivers will receive an additional R500 per month.
A payment increase per caregiver means that instead of a household with three children receiving an additional R1500 per month, they will only get an additional R500 – the same amount as a family with one child. This has been condemned by civil society groups and researchers who called for grant increases per child.
All other grants will be augmented by R250 per month for six months with a special COVID-19 Social Relief of Distress grant of R350 per month for those who are not covered by other grants or the Unemployment Insurance Fund.
The COVID-19 lockdown has clarified the gaps and insufficiencies in South Africa’s social welfare system. The initial package of relief measures was aimed at supporting households by expanding the Unemployment Insurance Fund, but as economists have shown, about 45 percent of workers are not eligible for the fund.
Informal sector workers also do not qualify for Unemployment Insurance Fund, and only one in five receives income support through the child support grant. The shortfalls leave at least 8 million people without any form of direct income support.
The grant increases, alongside the new COVID-19 grant, will provide a necessary salve to poor households especially as direct food aid is weighed down by lethargic bureaucracies and accusations of corruption. (Read more.)

Question: Social grant increases may help keep millions from starvation but what happens when the immediate Covid-19 crisis abates?

Autumn/fall

Feeling the news blues?
The autumn/fall garden offers an antidote.

Swamp cypress leaves turning golden red.
Click to enlarge.

Leonotis Leonurus, aka  "lion's ear" and "wild dagga"
Click to enlarge

Autumn/fall succulent in flower
Click to enlarge

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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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