COVID-19 WRAP | More than 1,500 new cases recorded in SA

04 October 2020 - 06:00

By TimesLIVE

October 04 2020 - 20:53

France reports 12,565 new coronavirus cases in past 24 hours

France on Sunday reported 12,565 new confirmed coronavirus infections over the last 24 hours, falling from the previous daily toll that had a set a new record.

The total number of infections since the start of the epidemic rose to 619,190 cases, the health ministry said.

France reported nearly 17,000 new infections on Saturday.

The number of deaths increased by 32 to 32,230.

There were 4,264 new cases of people being hospitalised over the last seven days, including 893 in intensive care units. That is slightly higher than the previous report on Saturday.

The rate of positive coronavirus tests in France keeps rising, reaching 8.2% on Sunday, up from to 7.9% the previous day.

- Reuters

October 04 2020 - 16:04

Home affairs minister Aaron Motsoaledi hopes airline Covid-19 issues are resolved swiftly

Home affairs minister Aaron Motsoaledi says his office is aware of the issues surrounding maritime and airline crews being treated like passengers when it comes to Covid-19 testing and compliance.

This after Emirates Airlines pulled flights to the country.

In an interview with eNCA, Carla da Silva, chairperson at the Board of Airline Representatives, said that the major problem was the requirement for cabin crew to produce negative polymerase chain reaction (PCR), like passengers, whenever they entered the country.

October 04 2020 - 15:07

UK's Boris Johnson sees bumpy Covid winter, but radical changes by spring

British prime minister Boris Johnson said on Sunday he expected the next few months of the Covid-19 pandemic to be bumpy, but that things would look radically different in the spring.

Britain, which has suffered Europe's worst death toll from the virus, gradually came out of a national lockdown over the summer, but many areas including major cities such as Manchester and Glasgow are currently subject to local restrictions.

Johnson said he knew many people were furious with him over perceived inconsistencies and confusion surrounding the local measures, but he was seeking to strike a balance between public health and the wider needs of society and the economy.

October 04 2020 - 14:42

SA and India ask WTO to waive rules to aid Covid-19 drug production

SA and India want the World Trade Organization (WTO) to waive intellectual property rules to make it easier for developing countries to produce or import Covid-19 drugs, a letter to the WTO shows.

In their letter dated October 2 the two countries called on the global trade body to waive parts of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), which governs patents, trademarks, copyright and other intellectual property rules globally.

October 04 2020 - 14:36

White House acknowledges Trump's condition had been worse than revealed

White House chief of staff Mark Meadows revealed that President Donald Trump's condition on Friday was far worse than officials had made public, saying doctors recommended the president go to the hospital after seeing he had a fever and his blood oxygen level dropped rapidly.

Meadows made the comments in an interview with Fox News broadcast on Saturday night that capped two days of conflicting and opaque assessments of the 74-year-old president's health.

October 04 2020 - 12:49

India seeks up to 500 million coronavirus vaccine doses by July 2021

India hopes to receive up to 500 million doses of coronavirus vaccine by July to inoculate about 250 million people, health minister Harsh Vardhan said on Sunday, as infections in the world's second-worst affected country continue to surge.

India's has recorded some 6.55 million infections, with 75,829 in the past 24 hours, while Covid-19-related deaths have totalled 101,782, health ministry data showed. "There is a high-level expert body going into all aspects of vaccines," Vardhan wrote on Twitter.

"Our rough estimate and the target would be to receive and utilise 400 to 500 million doses covering (200 million-250 million) people by July 2021."

—Reuters

October 04 2020 - 06:15

Coronavirus has the last word as a third prominent denialist — after Boris and Bolsonaro — tests positive

“Karma” was the word being bandied about this week in the wake of the revelation that US President Donald Trump, the most powerful man on Earth, had tested positive for the coronavirus. The infection of such a prominent and influential denialist is a big deal — a teachable moment — for the fight against Covid-19.

The virus has struck at the very heart of power in the US. It’s yet another testament to the fact that the disease does not discriminate; no class or level of status is immune. As one analyst put it, it’s the biggest threat to the health of a sitting president in decades.

Even more significant is the fact that Trump has from the beginning tried to play down the seriousness of the pandemic, even lying about its contagiousness, for political reasons. His gaze has always been on next month’s elections and he was not going to allow anything, not even a pandemic that has killed thousands of Americans — the highest national toll in the world — to stand in the way. The economy was the trump card for his re-election and he wasn’t going to allow anything to disrupt it. He now becomes the virus’s most visible token.

October 04 2020 - 06:10

No denial as Trump goes to hospital after testing positive for Covid-19

US President Donald Trump was in a military hospital yesterday for treatment after testing positive for Covid-19, an extraordinary development that has upended the election a month before voting.

About 17 hours after he made his diagnosis public, Trump walked slowly from the White House to a waiting helicopter to be taken to Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre in Bethesda, Maryland. He wore a mask and business suit and did not speak to reporters.

"I think I'm doing very well, but we're going to make sure that things work out," Trump said in a brief video message posted on Twitter. Early on Friday, he had tweeted that he and the first lady, Melania Trump, had contracted the virus.

—Reuters

October 04 2020 - 06:00

The situation at my hospital is dismal': lockdown reveals junior doctor burnout

I work in communications in the medical sector and during the lockdown period it was not uncommon for two or three of the many junior doctor-contacts on my phone to be simultaneously posting WhatsApp status updates while on call. I began to notice some trends — concerns over inadequate personal protective equipment, conflict with management and extreme fatigue.

“Headphones on dancing furiously to psy-trance in a cassava patch only way to process last call,” one doctor breathlessly reported from Mpumalanga, where he is doing community service in a rural facility. As the peak period of the epidemic washed over, updates from one contact in particular — Dr Zolelwa Sifumba — dropped with a frequency that amounted to life narration.

I became absorbed, and quite concerned, and, because there is something voyeuristic about passively reading the updates of people you don’t know that well, I reached out.