Category: dearSA

Health officials in the Cape Metro will now only test for Covid-19 in people with comorbidities that are older than 55.

Everyone who accesses a health facility will get screened but only those who have symptoms and fall in the following categories will be tested:

• People already in hospital with Covid-19 symptoms.
• Health care workers with Covid-19 symptoms.
• People who are older than 55 with diabetes or hypertension and Covid-19 symptoms.
• People who are younger than 55 with underlying conditions and Covid-19 symptoms.
• People who live in a care home or an old age home with Covid-19 symptoms.

Pippa Hudson asked Dr Keith Cloete (Head of Health at the Western Cape Department of Health) why the approach to testing has changed.

We want to reduce mortality… our focus turns away from people least at risk… we want to preserve tests for where it makes the most difference…

Dr Keith Cloete, Head of Health – Western Cape Department of Health

If you’re younger than 55 and you have symptoms, assume you have Covid-19… After 14 days, you’ll be fine… There’s no purpose in getting a test.

Dr Keith Cloete, Head of Health – Western Cape Department of Health

Screening is vital…

Dr Keith Cloete, Head of Health – Western Cape Department of Health

In other areas, you can still get tested. In the Metro, we’re at the point that we’re [only] looking at the vulnerable.

Dr Keith Cloete, Head of Health – Western Cape Department of Health

 

Article by Capetalk

The high court has ruled that government’s lockdown regulations are not legal but they will nevertheless remain in place for at least the next 14 days.

Judge Norman Davis ruled in favour of Liberty Fighters Network, the Hola Bona Renaissance Foundation and attorney Reyno de Beer, after the group launched an urgent court challenge to the regulations.

The judge found that “little or in fact no regard was given to the extent of the impact of individual regulations on the constitutional rights of people and whether the extent of the limitation of their rights was justifiable or not”.

“The starting point was not ‘How can we as government limit constitutional rights in the least possible fashion whilst still protecting the inhabitants of South Africa?’ but rather ‘We will seek to achieve our goal by whatever means, irrespective of the costs, and we will determine, albeit incrementally, which constitutional rights you as the people of South Africa, may exercise,’” he said.

“The examples are too numerous to mention,” he said. “One need only to think of the irrationality in being allowed to buy a jersey but not undergarments or open-toed shoes and the criminalisation of many of the regulatory measures.”

Still, he said, some provisions passed muster.

“The cautionary regulations relating to education, prohibitions against evictions, initiation practices and the closures of night clubs and fitness centres, for example, as well as the closure of borders all appear to be rationally connected to the stated objectives,” Davis said.

Those regulations were unaffected by the order handed down.

The regulations around the ban on tobacco were also not affected, since those are subject to separate court challenges.

In terms of the remainder, the declaration of invalidity was suspended for 14 days, with the judge saying one must “be mindful of the fact that the Covid-19 danger is still with us … and to create a regulatory void might lead to unmitigated disaster and chaos”.

In the interim, he directed Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, in consultation with the relevant ministers, to review, amend, and republish the regulations with “due consideration to the limitation each regulation has on the rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights”.

Accountability Now’s Paul Hoffman SC said the judge had been careful to give government 14 days to remedy the lack of rationality of the measures he had declared unconstitutional and invalid.

“Either government is going to accept that Judge Davis is right and they are going to fix the regulations and make them rational or take the judgment on appeal,” Hoffman said.

He said in the case of the latter, there would likely be an argument about whether the relief granted should be suspended pending the outcome of the appeal.

Hoffman explained that the judgment did not have to be referred to the Constitutional Court for confirmation, though, because the high court was empowered to set aside regulations.

Cabinet said it would make a further statement once it had fully studied the judgment.

Article by TheCitizen

The administrators running South Africa’s embattled national airline proposed the government provide a 21 billion rand ($1.2 billion) bailout to help repay debt and resume operations after the lifting of Covid-19 travel bans.

The plan includes about 17 billion rand that will go toward repaying South African Airways creditors, the bulk of which was allocated by the National Treasury earlier this year, according to a draft copy seen by Bloomberg. A further 4 billion rand is needed for retrenchments and working capital, the proposal says.

The draft plan “is for discussion purposes only and we await comment from the affected persons,” a spokeswoman for the administrators said, adding that the team has until June 8 to finalize a rescue proposal. South Africa’s Public Enterprises Ministry, which is responsible for SAA, said it hasn’t yet discussed the plan and no decisions have been taken.

While the funding agreement has yet to be finalized, a deal of this nature would represent a truce between the government and SAA’s business-rescue team over the airline’s future. The administrators, appointed in December, had an earlier request for state funding rejected in April, and subsequently proposed firing the entire workforce to stave off liquidation.

Bright Future

Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan strongly objected to that plan, and announced his ambitions for the creation of a new airline at the start of the month. President Cyril Ramaphosa reiterated the government’s intention to revive SAA on Sunday, saying he sees a bright future for the carrier.

South Africa’s National Treasury put aside 16.4 billion rand to repay SAA’s creditors in February’s budget, although the funding has yet to be handed over. The carrier’s two biggest commercial lenders are Johannesburg-based rivals Nedbank Ltd. and Absa Group Ltd., according to the rescue plan. A short-term loan of 2 billion rand from a consortium of banks comes due by the end of July, as does a 3.5 billion-rand financing package from the Development Bank of Southern Africa.

SAA’s commercial passenger planes have been grounded since late March, when the government closed borders for non-urgent travel to contain the coronavirus. Some domestic flights are being allowed to operate as of Monday for business purposes, though SAA had previously reduced its local services to a single Johannesburg-Cape Town route.

The administrators said they had identified two potential strategic investment partners before the Covid-19 pandemic brought the international aviation industry to its knees. A third company had shown an interest in forming an alliance, according to the draft plan. All talks are on hold while the industry recovers.

Article by Bloomberg

Basic education minister Angie Motshekga said on Monday the reopening of schools had to be postponed at the 11th hour because some were not ready to operate.

“Due to last minute changes, on Saturday we had a meeting with the CEM [council of education ministers] and union bodies. The decision we took on Saturday forced me to do a series of consultations on Sunday,” Motshekga said on Monday, apologising for the postponement.

The minister had engaged heads of department, teacher unions, school governing bodies, NGOs and organisations working with children who had special needs.

“On Saturday, we met and we received three critical reports – one on the state of readiness. We also received a report from Rand Water

“I also had to receive reports from different provinces. Based on those reports, it was clear the sector was at different stages of readiness,” said Motshekga.

She confirmed that schools would reopen next Monday.

She said this week would be used to induct teachers and to “mop up” in order to comply with the safety standards necessary to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

This week would be used to deliver protective equipment and water tanks to schools that needed them, Motshekga said.

On Sunday evening,  Motshekga’s office announced the postponement of a scheduled media briefing in which she was to update the nation about the readiness of schools as pupils in grades 7 and 12 were due to return to school.

Parents expressed their frustration about the last-minute U-turn, with many having already made arrangements to get their children back to class from June 1.

Article by TimesLive

British American Tobacco South Africa says it will on Friday recommence with urgent legal proceedings to challenge the government’s decision to extend the ban on tobacco sales during Level 3 of the nationwide lockdown.

The state says the ban is needed to safeguard public health, as evidence suggests cigarette smokers are more likely to develop severe Covid-19 symptoms than non-smokers.

BATSA, the country’s largest cigarette manufacturer, said in a statement it was supported in this action by Japan Tobacco International as well as “groups and organisations representing the tobacco value chain across the country, including consumers, tobacco farmers and retailers”.

“BATSA has made every effort to constructively engage with the government since the ban came into force, including making detailed submissions, along with other interested parties, to various Ministers, as well as directly to the Presidency,” it said in a statement.

“To date, no formal response has been received from the government, and BATSA has also not been included in any of the government’s consultation processes so far.”

The cigarette giant said the ban was threatening the survival of SA’s legal tobacco sector, which employs thousands.

The Fair Trade Independent Tobacco Association has already taken the government to court to challenge the ban in a separate case. While arguments have not yet been heard in that case, the state earlier in the week filed responding papers setting out its rationale for keeping the sale of cigarettes and tobacco products prohibited during the coronavirus pandemic.

In a tweet on Friday morning, FITA chairperson Sinenhlanhla Mnguni said the organisation’s case would be heard by the Pretoria High Court on 9 and 10 June.

Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, said the ban was implemented to decrease the potential strain on SA’s health system.

Dlamini-Zuma argued that, while Covid-19 is a relatively new disease, early studies support the view that using tobacco products increases not only the risk of catching the disease but also the risk of contracting a more serious form of the disease.

“This, in turn, increases strain on the public health system, by increasing the number of people who will need access to resources such as intensive care unit beds and ventilators,” she said.

Article by Fin24

There is no evidence that smoking would increase the transmission of the coronavirus, a cardiologist and antismoking researcher said on Thursday.

Dr Konstantinos Farsalinos told radio 702 in an interview that he did not understand why SA had taken the decision to ban the sale of cigarettes.

He said the reason most other countries had not done this in response to the pandemic was very simple.

“There is zero evidence that smoking will propagate or is in some way increasing the transmission of coronavirus. In fact, banning smoking in a pandemic can have very adverse effects.”

Co-operative governance & traditional affairs minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, in an affidavit submitted to the high court in Pretoria on Wednesday, said that banning the sale of tobacco products during the lockdown was aimed at protecting human life, health and reducing the potential strain on the health-care system.

Dlamini-Zuma was giving reasons for the decision in response to a challenge by the Fair Trade Independent Tobacco Association (Fita).

Farsalinos said that clinical observations, reported in published studies, indicated that nicotine — not the act of smoking tobacco — “may have some protective role to play in Covid-19″. Research had indicated that nicotine had anti-inflammatory properties.

The ban has had some adverse consequences, such as illicit tobacco sales. “Banning smoking is not a way for people to quit, it’s a way to create an explosion of the black market,” he said.

Farsalinos said quitting smoking would not necessarily be beneficial to a person who soon afterwards became infected with Covid-19.

“They are in reality smokers. It takes years for quitters to reverse the damage.”

Fita wants the court to set aside the government’s decision to temporarily ban the sale of tobacco products.

Dlamini-Zuma said in her responding court papers that the ban would see a “sizeable number of South Africans” quit smoking once the lockdown ended, with the “poor and youth … particularly likely to quit”.

President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that cigarettes would remain banned under level 3 of the lockdown, starting on June 1.

Article by Timeslive

The broadcaster was forced to close its doors in Durban after an employee tested positive on Tuesday and it’s understood the lab, which confirmed the results said an error occurred during the testing process.

JOHANNESBURG – The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) on Wednesday said that it was taking all the necessary precautions after one of its employees at its KwaZulu-Natal office received a false positive result for COVID-19.

The broadcaster was forced to close its doors in Durban after an employee tested positive on Tuesday and it’s understood that the lab which confirmed the results said that an error occurred during the testing process.

SABC’s Mmoni Seapolelo said: “The positive result that was reported yesterday was based on official results presented to the employee. The employee has since been alerted by the lab in question that an error occurred during the initial testing and the employee was presented with new test results whose outcome was negative. The corporation is in possession of both test results.”

Seapolelo said the affected employee would remain in quarantine while being closely monitored and would continue to contract trace staff members and resume operations on Friday as part of its safety measures.

Article by EWN

• The government has disclosed the science on which it relied in deciding to ban tobacco products during South Africa’s coronavirus lockdown.
• In an affidavit, cooperative governance and traditional affairs minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma appears to cite several studies showing a link between smoking and bad cases of Covid-19.
• She actually cites one set of statistics three different ways – plus some disagreement about what those numbers mean.

In papers filed with the high court in Pretoria this week, the South African government for the first time disclosed the scientific studies it says led to the decision to ban cigarette sales during the coronavirus lockdown.

In a 17-page affidavit in response to an action by the Fair Trade Independent Tobacco Association, cooperative governance and traditional affairs minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma speaks at length about the harm cigarettes do generally, and the near-immediate benefits that quitting brings.

Thanks to the high prices and reduced access to illicit cigarettes, the temporary cigarette prohibition should see a lot of South Africans quit for good, especially young and poor people, said Dlamini-Zuma.

But there is also reason to suspect a direct link between severe Covid-19 and smoking she said – plus an increased risk of catching the disease in the first place for smokers.

In support of that, Dlamini-Zuma’s affidavit gives the appearance of citing four different studies that found a link between smoking and severe cases of Covid-19, plus another piece of research that proposes a mechanism by which smokers could be making themselves more likely to be infected.

In reality she effectively cites one study of some value three different ways. And that study did not deal with smoking, but only happened to include statistics others could use to reach a conclusion.

The additional piece of research on the mechanism (which Dlamini-Zuma does not present as a study) turns out to be a letter which, if anything, undermines her case.

This is what Dlamini-Zuma told a court about the science behind government’s cigarette ban – and what that research actually says.

Study 1: Smokers may be at more risk of bad cases of Covid-19 – but not everyone agrees.

On 28 February, well before South Africa’s lockdown, the New England Journal of Medicine published “Clinical characteristics of coronavirus disease 2019 in China”.

Dlamini-Zuma described it to the court like this:

“A large study of 1099 patients with Covid-19 found that, among the patients with severe symptoms, 16.9% were current smokers and 5.2% were former smokers, in contrast to patients with non-severe symptoms where 11.8% were current smokers and 1.3% were former smokers. In the group of patients that either needed mechanical ventilation, admission to an ICU or die, 25.5% were current smokers and 7.6% were former smokers.”

The study itself does not deal with smoking at all, but it does include a table which lists the outcomes for smokers, non-smokers, and former smokers with Covid-19. This was later used by others to reach conclusions about the link with smoking – but without clear consensus.

In correspondence that touches on the study – correspondence which Dlamini-Zuma also cites in her court papers (see “Not-quite-a-study” below) – another researcher points out that there were very few smokers in the study cohort compared to the prevalence of smoking in China.

The data shows “a trend towards association between smoking and severity of Covid-19”, said Hua Cai of the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California Los Angeles, in the letter, “but it was not significant.”

The link was taken more seriously in a review, however. (See “Study 3” below.)

Study 2: 5 smokers died of Covid-19

The second study Dlamini-Zuma cites, “Clinical course and risk factors for mortality of adult inpatients with COVID-19 in Wuhan, China: a retrospective cohort study” was published by The Lancet on 11 March.

She told the court that:

“Another study found that, among those who were infected with Covid-19 and died, 9% were current smokers.”

The study included data on 191 people, of which 11 were smokers. Five of those smokers died, while six survived.

The study itself does not deal with smoking or draw conclusions, but includes statistics on smokers in accompanying tables.

According to a review also cited by Dlamini-Zuma (See “Study 3, below), those numbers pointed to “no statistically significant difference between the smoking rates of survivors and non-survivors” of Covid-19.

Study 3 (and 4): Study 1 suggests smoking may be associated with bad Covid-19

Dlamini-Zuma also cites in her affidavit a piece of correspondence published by The Lancet on 11 March, which appears to explain how smoking could directly make people more likely to catch SARS-CoV-2.

She tells the court:

“One possible reason [that smokers are more likely to end up in ICU] is that smokers express the receptor ACE2 (angiotensin II conversion enzyme-2 receptor). This is a receptor site for Covid-19 infections in the respiratory system. Because smokers have increased ACE2 receptors, there are potentially more ‘receptor sites’ for the virus to enter the body.”

But the writer, Hua Cai of the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California Los Angeles, actually makes a very different point.

New research, says the writer, suggests ACE2 expression (which could be linked to smoking) could explain why Asian men were apparently so much more likely to fall prey to Covid-19 than Asian women, and men in other ethnic groups.

But a study had found no difference in ACE2 expression between smokers and non-smokers who were white; only in smokers of Asian ethnicity did there appear to be a link.

“…the current literature does not support smoking as a predisposing factor in men or any subgroup for infection with SARS-CoV-2,” reads the letter.

Article by Business Insider

JOHANNESBURG – Minister in the Presidency Jackson Mthembu has told Eyewitness News that religious organisations will regulate and monitor themselves to ensure that they comply with safety regulations when they open their doors next week.

On Tuesday night, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that churches, mosques and temples, which had been shut down for more than two months, could open when the country moved to level 3 lockdown regulations but under strict conditions, including the limitation of 50 people per service.

He said that the religious leaders, who were now declared essential religious front line workers, provided spiritual guidance, care and counselling to millions of South Africans.

There is now scepticism and fear that allowing these religious gatherings to resume will allow the coronavirus to spread rapidly.

Government expects churches, mosques and temples to adhere to safety measures when they open their doors next week but how will they be monitored top ensure their congregants are not exposed to the virus?

This is how Minister Mthembu responded.

“You can ask the same question on how the workspaces will be monitored too because we’ve said that sectors of the economy are now open.”

But government has dispatched inspectors from the Labour Department to regulate if companies comply with safety guidelines.

Mthembu said that the churches would monitor themselves.

“They’ve agreed that they will monitor themselves. Many churches have motherboards and associations.”

He said that government would provide further details on Thursday on the regulations that would govern gatherings.

Article by EWN

Ramaphosa, in delivering seven national addresses since the start of the lockdown, hasn’t faced one press conference – not one – where he can be asked to explain and clarify and expand on the myriad issues in the public domain, writes Pieter du Toit.