Reopening America

First things first. Download the CDC’s recently published Guidelines for Reopening America (pdf).

This is intended for all Americans, whether you own a business, run a school, or want to ensure the cleanliness and safety of your home. Reopening America requires all of us to move forward together by practicing social distancing and other daily habits to reduce our risk of exposure to the virus that causes COVID-19. Reopening the country also strongly relies on public health strategies, including increased testing of people for the virus, social distancing, isolation, and keeping track of how someone infected might have infected other people.

***

A spoof or not a spoof? That is the question
The lines between reality and farce increasingly blur as The Don and his wrecking crew refuse evidence-based, scientific, medical, research-oriented data.
And, our life and times become increasingly surreal.
Donald Trump tweeted this video of a grotesquely transformed scene from the 1996 movie “Independence Day.”
Watch for faces of spell-bound Republicans – including Sen Ted Cruz (shedding tears of joy?), Marco Rubio, Donald Trump Jr. – superimposed over actors’ faces.
The Donald is the hero lip-sync’ing original movie script lines that he’d never think of actually saying.

Trump apparently viewed the manipulated clip as calling Americans back to a reopened economy amid the COVID-19 crisis. But the speech could also be interpreted as a call to Americans to fight for their lives.
The twisted version uses [original movie actor Bill] Pullman’s …voice, but images of Trump’s head have been superimposed on [Pullman’s far sleeker] body. Spectators enraptured by his speech include Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson of Fox News, a teary-eyed Sen. Ted Cruz, Ivanka Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and others.

In the clip, Trump, the man who couldn’t care less about actual humans, mouths,

“Mankind. That word should have new meaning for us today… We’re “fighting for our right to live, to exist.”

Indeed, with 4,716,520 million infected and 315,225 dead, Trump got something right, even if unintentionally.
We are in the fight of our lives – and getting little help from a chaotic wanna-be hero.

News blues…

Trump names Moncef Slaoui his COVID-19 vaccine czar/ “chief scientist” for Operation Warp Speed COVID-19 vaccine development. Slaoui, former pharmaceutical executive of Moderna, owns 155,000 Moderna stock options, totaling more than $10 million.
Conflict of interest, you ask? What conflict of interest?

Moderna last month announced that it received $483 million in federal funding for vaccine development, which sent its stocks up 15 percent, CNBC reported.
On Friday, when Trump introduced him in a Rose Garden press briefing, Slaoui said the president’s aim to have a vaccine by the end of the year was “credible,” though it would be “extremely challenging.”

Hmm, what if the challenge proves too challenging?
Microbiology Society’s report, “The current challenges for vaccine development” states:

…there is still a great need for new vaccines and these are emerging far more slowly than we would wish. Despite the massive expansion in understanding of immune responses to infection, research is often hindered by a lack of understanding of the immune responses required specifically for protection, or by a lack of approved adjuvants and delivery systems to induce the required responses. In addition, the financial commitment required to license new vaccines is significant, and the more lucrative markets are often not those with the greatest need.

How soon before Trump fires Slaoui for promising a vaccine and didn’t deliver? Or Trump, notoriously truth-averse, tells Americans that Slaoui never, ever said a vaccine was possible by the end of the year?
Enquiring minds ….

Whackjobbery*: it’s baaack

Journalist for News 12 Long Island, Kevin Vesey covered a pro-Trump, anti-stay-at-home protest. There,

... a protester without a mask and wearing a red MAGA hat and Trump T-shirt deliberately advanced on Vesey (who was wearing a mask).
“I think you need to back away from me,” the reporter told [the protester] on video, turning his face away.
“No, I’ve got hydroxychloroquine,” said the unidentified protester as he strode closer. “I’m fine.”
The drug, touted by Trump, has not proved to be effective against COVID-19 and can have lethal side effects.

 Kevin Vesey writes, “The level of anger directed at the media from these protesters was alarming. As always, I will tell a fair and unbiased story today.”
Despite all captured on film, Donald Trump slammed the report as “fake news.”

***

Eric, son of Trump
Last Friday, I shared Eric Trump speaking “fluent Donald.” Eric is an echo chamber of “fluent Donald,” too.
Taking a page from dad’s playbook, Eric insisted in an interview with Fox News uber-Trump-groupie Jeanine Pirro that:

COVID-19 will “magically” disappear — after election day.
He indicated that the coronavirus [that has killed 315,000+ people around the globe — including nearly 90,000 Americans] is a ploy cooked up by the Democrats to stop Donald Trump from rallying his supporters at campaign events.
[Middle son maintains] Democratic presidential frontrunner Joe Biden “loves this. They think they’re taking away Donald Trump’s greatest tool, which is to go into an arena and fill it with 50,000 people every time.” [BTW, Trump has never had 50,000 people in any American arena.]
“You watch,” Eric added. “They will milk it every single day between now and November 3rd.”
“And guess what – after November 3rd, coronavirus will magically, all of the sudden, go away and disappear and everybody will be able to reopen.” He called it a “very cognizant strategy.”

Gosh, is Eric a poopagandist* who believes his own poopaganda*?
[FYI: In English “cognizant” is defined as “having knowledge or awareness.”]

*Whackjob: term coined by Steve Schmidt of The Lincoln Project to denote virulent Trump supporters who’ve given up common sense in favor of Trumpism.
*poopaganda – a quasi-genteel term for virulent bull-s**t “truthiness” masquerading as self-empowering info.
*poopagandist – one who perpetuates poopaganda and then complains that social media and “fake news” is trying to silence contrary views and/or conservative voices.

***

Recently, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni warned against people misbehaving during the COVID-19 period.

"God has a lot of work,” he said. “[God] has the whole world to look after. He cannot just be here in Uganda looking after idiots...."

President Museveni, can you extend that warning to anti-mask, anti-stay-at-home idiots in the United States? And, to the current inhabitants of the White House and Trump Tower?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Still struggling for sufficient aerobic exercise -  and trying to keep busy - during lockdown, I’ve taken up Weed Walking.
This entails laps around the garden while wearing gardening gloves (and other clothing). I walk, I notice weeds. I pluck an armful of weeds and, at the end of the lap, I place them into a wheelbarrow.
When full, I push the wheelbarrowful through the security gate, along the road, and dump contents into the burn pit.

Blackjack seedpod.
© Something over Tea 

This time of year, the predominant weeds is the almost indestructible (not easily compostable) blackjack - Bidens Pilosa. Originally native of South America, each tenacious blackjack plant “bears about eighty flower heads that can produce over 3,000 seeds in a single generation.” Designed to persist, seeds “radiate outwards and have sharp awns that hook onto passing animals and people as an efficient means of dispersal.”

In the garden, Weed  Walking keeps me ahead of blackjacks’ seeding phase.
With lockdown preventing outside garden care, weeds run amok and blackjacks are in Blackjack Heaven.
I return from the short trip to the burn pit covered in blackjack seeds. Before re-entering the garden, I pluck seeds from my hoodie, my pants, socks, shoes, gardening gloves, and hair.

Perhaps the only living thing currently more reproductively successful than blackjacks is the nightmare coronavirus.

Read Week 1 | Week 2   |  Week 3  |  Week 4 | Week 5  | Week 6  |  Week 7  | Week 8

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Humor might save us

German café tells customers
to wear pool noodles
to enforce social distancing
Click to enlarge.

The owners of a café in Berlin had fun handing out straw hats with two colorful swimming noodles attached and telling customers, "Keep the social distance."
Creative, friendly, and humane customer service lifts the spirits more than floor markings and perspex screens geared to keep people apart.

Friendly humor and comedy can save us humans from ourselves.
Animals are in on it, too, as this short photo essay indicates.

Is it inappropriate to laugh when, globally, close to 4.64 million humans have been infected with, and more than 312,000 killed by a mysterious and apparently fast-morphing virus?
Consider the intangible pluses:
Psychologists Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun of the University of North Carolina Charlotte, maintain that while prolonged traumas can cause untold psychological damage, there is a portion of people who report psychological growth in the face of trauma.
Tedeschi and Calhoun call this “post-traumatic growth” and describe it as “positive psychological change experienced as a result of the struggle with highly challenging life circumstances.”
Post-traumatic growth, they claim, has five facets that survivors report experiencing:

• a greater appreciation for life,
• closer social relationships,
• enhanced feelings of personal strength,
• spiritual growth, and
• the recognition of new possibilities for their lives.

The development of post-traumatic growth is theorized to lead to a sense of wisdom about the world, and, potentially, over time to greater satisfaction with life. Post-traumatic growth is seen as not only an outcome, but also as the process of coming to terms with trauma and changing your life in a more meaningful or positive direction.”
They don’t specifically mention humor as an element of a greater appreciation for life, but I will. Humor and laughing at oneself and with others fits into all the bullet points, above.
Give it a try with comedienne Sara Cooper who lets “Trump be Trump” at his campaign-rally-cum-press-conferences:

• Cooper/Trump on Katie Miller and testing 
• Cooper/Trump, “How to Medical” 
• Cooper/Trump, “Obamagate!” 
• Coooper/Trump, “Testing” 

Comedian Stephen Colbert says,  “I got a thing for science. I’m into the lifestyle…by which I mean… [the lifestyle of] continuing to live!”
Me too, Stephen.
Let’s to continue to enjoy living while the living is possible, if not easy.

Anti-blues News

More to feel good about:

• Wild white storks hatched in the UK for the first time in centuries 
  A Polish female [white] stork fraternized then mated “with a male [white stork] believed to be one of the ‘20 or so vagrant storks’ that visit the [UK] every year.” This year, for the first time “in hundreds of years …white stork chicks have been born in the wild” at the Knepp Estate in West Sussex. “Before this, the most recent babies hatched was recorded on the roof of St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh in 1416.”
  Immigrant storks, vagrant storks, chick storks … it’s all happening out there. (I hope the Polish female has her Brexit paperwork in order. ) Life goes on…
  
• A rare blue bee scientists thought might have become extinct has been rediscovered in Florida.
  The extremely rare metallic navy insect, a blue calamintha bee, previously found in only four areas "totaling just 16 square miles of pine scrub habitat at Central Florida's Lake Wales Ridge," has been discovered by a researcher.

I hope the wild white storks and rare blue bees are as excited about discovery as are the researchers.
History indicates life gets precarious for many species – including human – after “discovery.”

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Fifty-two days of lockdown haven’t quenched my zest for talking to all the dogs, monkeys, birds, fish, crabs, dragonflies, plants, and spiderwebs that will listen.
Nor have 52 days dulled my desire to conduct garden experiments.
Back in late April I experimented with laying a footpath made of recycled pond weed and waterlilies (see Day 34, April 29).
The success of that experiment persuaded me to extend the footpath around the pond edge. Accordingly, I donned waders yesterday, entered the pond, harvested excess pond weed, and formed a new section of path.
Only excess pond weed and invasive lilies are harvested so it’ll take time to form this path. I’m confident completion will conclude about the same time as lockdown level 4.

I was anxious about how the goldfish might feel about me messing around in their habitat.
I’m pleased to report that, at days end, three of the four showed up for their late afternoon snack.
If the fourth fish refused to join his friends because he was miffed at my intrusion, I hope the three help him understand I mean no harm.

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VOTE!

Click to enlarge.

Former US President Barack Obama is, these days, a man of few words. But the few he utters are elegantly concise.
In the face of ongoing abuse by The Donald - the “Obamagate” conspiracy theory (that alleges Obama led attempts in 2016 to sabotage Trump’s incoming administration) and Trump’s efforts to distract from criticism of his blundering coronavirus response - Obama Tweeted one word: VOTE!
(Someone please mention to White House senior adviser, son-in-law, and general-fix-it-guy Jared Kushner that neither he nor his boss can postpone the election,  not even in an emergency.  Despite Jared’s lack of familiarity with life's disappointments - or the US Constitution - shouldn’t someone mention that pesky third branch of government, the US Congress, not the prez – nor Jared –  has the power to pass a statute changing the date of the election, yet not even Congress has the power to cancel it altogether?)

***

The gift of free webinars on topics of concern during the coronavirus pandemic have helped ease the effects of lockdown.
Thanks to Daily Maverick and their sponsors for their generosity in making these available.
“Seeding the Great Divide” addresses agriculture and agri-business in South Africa, Africa in general, and the possible effects of the pandemic.
Hosted by Daily Maverick’s Richard Poplak the webinar features Wandile Sihlobo, chief economist of the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa, and author, Finding Common Ground: Land, Equity and Agriculture.
Takeaways:

• Food insecurity is dire in the African continent – and will grow in the coming months due to the pandemic and climate change. This may mean migrations of hungry people in many African countries.
• South Africa is still exporting crops, but food insecurity is real for too many South Africans.
• South Africa desperately needs a land audit to determine who owns what, and where is the land the government owns and how to benefit from it.
• Worldwide, post Covid-19, there may be structural shifts in labor markets with more automation in agriculture. Over time, this will mean fewer people/migrants required to work.
• Brief discussion on Expropriation without Compensation (EWC) and why Wandile does not support it.

View the growing list of Daily Maverick titles and benefit from these webinars.

Mail & Guardian also offers free webinars, most recently, “Alcohol, tobacco and substance use during COVID19."
The South African government is unique in banning the sale of alcohol and tobacco during lockdown and, essentially, forcing withdrawal on its people. This webinar unpacks the implications and effects on mental health of the banning tobacco and alcohol.
Hosted by SADAG’s Cassey Chambers, with psychiatrist Hemant Nowbath and clinical psychologist Neil Amoore.

Whackjob* no more?

“Just last month,” Brian Lee Hitchens, a former Covid-19 skeptic, said:

“I didn’t think the crisis was real. I thought it was maybe the government trying something, and it was kind of like they threw it out there to kinda distract us.”
“I’d get up in the morning and pray and trust in God for his protection, and I’d just leave it at that. There were all these masks and gloves. I thought it looks like a hysteria,” he added.
In posts on his Facebook page in early April, he had claimed, “I do not fear this virus because I know that my God is bigger than this Virus will ever be.”
Then, Hitchens and his wife contracted the virus. They were hospitalized with serious infections.
Now, he’s urging people to take coronavirus seriously. “I don’t want to see anybody go through what I went through…This wasn’t some scare tactic that anybody was using. It wasn’t some made-up thing. This is a real virus that you’ve got to take serious.” 

*Whackjob: term coined by Steve Schmidt of The Lincoln Project to denote virulent Trump supporters who’ve given up common sense in favor of Trumpism.

News blues…

The politics of food parcels in Cape Town.

Food parcels are not a sustainable, comprehensive or systemic fix, but are governed by a logic of charity. When the state distributes a small number of food parcels through its ward councillors, it mimics this logic of charity: Whether they want to or not, distributors are forced to choose those they deem to be “deserving”.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Another warm autumn/fall day, another lawn mowed, grass clippings composted, and pond edging trimmed. Four healthy goldfish spied, swimming in the pond.
One happy gardener.

Read Week 1  | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4  |  Week 5   | Week 6   |   Week 7   | Week 8

See photos Spying on Garden Creatures     

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Digital death clock

Day 50! Let the humor  begin...
Ragging on Eric Trump, known in the US as the “least smart Trump” is like, well, bobbing for fish in a pot – so to speak.
Trying for an epic put-down of “truly evil people” @EricTrump Tweeted: “The chips are starting to crumble!”
Fellow Tweeters responded with a flurry of mixed clichés:

• No use crying over pissed milk
• You know what they say, the bigger they are, the more the eggs in the basket flock together
• How the turns have tabled!
• The tiger is now truly out of the barn!
• Down is away and up is far-fetched!,
• Time to shit or get out of the kitchen
• It’s collapsing like a house of cookies
• The cats out of the cradle
• Looks like the domino's on the other foot.

One wag Tweeter pointed out, “Eric speaks fluent Donald!”

Talking Trump

Digital Death Clock
in Times Square, NY
Click to enlarge.

‘Trump Death Clock’ In Times Square Is Grim Reminder Of Preventable Virus Deaths.
The “Trump Death Clock”  is a digital billboard in New York City’s Times Square that highlights President Donald Trump’s early inaction on coronavirus.
On Wednesday, May 13 it ticked over to an estimated 50,000 deaths that, according to two leading epidemiologists, could have been avoided had social distancing measures been implemented earlier.

News blues…

Around the world:
Philippines. More than 50 million people in the Philippines are locked down due to Covid-19, with 11,876 confirmed cases. Simultaneously, more than 200,000 people are facing Typhoon Vongfong with winds of at least 115 mph - an intensity equivalent of a category 3 hurricane - forcing the evacuation of tens of thousands.
Russia is hailing its medical workers as heroes …

But as the country becomes one of the global hot spots of the pandemic, those workers are suffering astonishing levels of infection and death in their ranks.

Thousands have been infected, and more than 180 doctors, nurses, paramedics and other medical workers have died.
Like their colleagues in much of the rest of the world, many of those doctors and nurses are suffering from a shortage of protective gear and equipment. But Russian health workers are also at the mercy of a convoluted, unforgiving bureaucracy that increasingly appears outmatched by the pandemic.

Bangladesh…[where] tented Rohingya encampments spread across landslide-prone hills are already susceptible to disaster and disease.

Diphtheria, all but eradicated in most of the world, has raced through them. Marauding elephants have trampled children to death. A fire recently destroyed hundreds of shelters.
The first cases of the coronavirus in crowded refugee camps for Rohingya Muslims in Bangladesh were confirmed on Thursday, raising fears about how quickly disease can spread through one of the world’s most overcrowded and vulnerable communities…. where around 1 million refugees have taken shelter after fleeing decades of persecution in neighboring Myanmar.
A community leader in the camps said that up to 1,900 people who had contact with the pair have been identified and may undergo some form of quarantine.
Epidemiologists fear the virus could spread like wildfire through such camps around the world, teeming with millions of people fleeing war, persecution and famine. It has turned up in camps in Syria, South Sudan and Greece’s Aegean Islands.

Yemen. It was just two weeks ago that war-ravaged Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, reported its first cluster of coronavirus cases.

Since then infections appear to have exploded, realizing the worst fears of aid groups.
Save the Children, the global charity, reported Thursday that at least 385 people had died over the past week with Covid 19-like symptoms in the city of Aden, where the first cluster — five cases — surfaced at the end of April.
Several hospitals in Aden have closed, and some medical workers have refused to work because of a lack of protective equipment. The two main public hospitals are providing only emergency services, and are not admitting patients.

Mumbai, India.
India’s ‘Maximum City’ Engulfed by Coronavirus. Photo essay.
Overflowing hospitals. Exhausted cops. Desperate slums. Images from Mumbai as the coronavirus upends the metropolis.

After President Ramaphosa’s lockdown update  EFF MP Mbuyiseni Ndlozi weighed in saying, “US President Donald Trump's Covid-19 addresses are good compared with how President Cyril Ramaphosa conducts his.”  This, because Trump “allows” reporters to “interrogate him” – nothing said about the lies Trump visits upon the American public and his abuse of reporters.
Economic Freedom Fighters – EFF – founded in 2013 by expelled former ANC Youth League President Julius Malema, and his allies, describes the party’s ideology as “far-left Pan-Africanist.”
“Far-left,” indeed. If political ideologies formed a circle, EFF is so far left that they’re overlapping far right. Of course, they love Trump. As Eric Trump might say, “they’re chicks of a feather.”
See post Day 6 – Tuesday April 1 for more.

(more) Whackjobery …

Another chapter in the ongoing saga of poopaganda, poopagandists, and poopagandism.*

• Get Ready for a Vaccine Information War. Social media is already filling up with misinformation about a Covid-19 vaccine, months or years before one even exists. A concerned citizen (non-poopadandist) mulls the success of the anti-vaccine poopagandists mindset and raises awareness about what could be at stake.
• Conspiracy theorists, far-right extremists around the world seize on the pandemic.  Civil rights advocates have warned for months that the coronavirus could aid recruiting for the most extreme white-supremacist and neo-Nazi groups. People seizing on the pandemic range from white supremacists and anti-vaxxers in the U.S. to fascist and anti-refugee groups across Europe, according to a POLITICO review of thousands social media posts and interviews with misinformation experts tracking their online activities.

*poopaganda – a quasi-genteel term 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 contrary views and/or conservative voices.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Another sunny, warm autumn/fall day.
Mowed 1.5 of 5 lawns – piece of cake! Mowing is smooth since I overcame the struggles encountered the first weeks of lockdown. Smooth, expect for the occasional wheel falling off the mower. The mower was new when first I began mowing and, during my first foray, the front left wheel fell off. Since then, all four wheels have fallen off, one at a time. Today, the front left wheel fell off again. If a wheel falls off tomorrow when I tackle lawns 3 through 5, I'll know there's a wheel-conspiracy....
Wheels notwithstanding, mowing, weeding and prepping the garden for winter is a pleasure. Full body exercise – bending, pulling, clipping, crawling – allows the mind to range and enquire.

Ongoing area of enquiry: what’s up with the U.S. Embassy’s confusing Updates on Special Repatriation Flights?
Last week I mentioned Qatar Airlines had arranged several flights from SA airports to Doha. That upon arrival in Doha, travelers would seek flights heading to the US and find their own way home. SAA had offered a flight to Dulles, Washington D.C.
Soon after, I received another email from the Embassy stating all flights had been cancelled.

Another confusing email arrived today:

Event:  The South African Ministry of Health confirmed 12,074 cases of COVID-19 within its borders.
May 16 Qatar Airways and May 17 SAA Flights
The airlines have notified us that these flights have been sold out. The airlines are working directly with customers on ticketing for the flights. These special repatriation flights are organized by the respective airlines and are not U.S. government-coordinated flights, and the U.S. Mission did not compile or prioritize the passenger lists but did work with the airlines to clear the passenger lists. If you have a ticket booked on one of these flights and have specific questions about baggage allowance, cost, or anything specific to the flight, please contact the airline directly. Otherwise, please wait until we have coordinated with the Government of South Africa and the airline to complete the passenger list clearance process after which we will create and distribute travel letters for confirmed passengers. You do not need to email us to request a travel letter; they will be distributed as soon as possible once the passenger list is finalized.
We continue to work with airlines for repatriation opportunities for our citizen community and we hope to be able to announce upcoming opportunities in the coming days. We want you to know that we've heard your questions and concerns as the lockdown was extended and future commercial flights continue to be canceled.  We understand there is a lot of uncertainty during this time and we are doing everything we can to seek clarity and pass on the latest information we have.
We will continue to follow every lead and pursue every option for repatriating U.S. citizens to the United States.

Hmmm, each time I receive an email from the Embassy, my lack of confidence in repatriation flights grows ….

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“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

Read Week 1  | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4  |  Week 5   | Week 6   |   Week 7

See photos Spying on Garden Creatures     

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