COVID-19 WRAP | SA Covid-19 death toll climbs to 21,709

02 December 2020 - 07:38 By TimesLIVE

December 02 2020 - 18:13

Major holiday events banned in KZN amid fears of Covid-19 spike

The KwaZulu-Natal government has discouraged the hosting of major events in the province due to the threat and risks of the Covid-19 pandemic.

This was announced on Wednesday, after a provincial executive council held the day before.

“The provincial executive council considered various requests from event organisers in relation to hosting major events that are associated with the festive season,” premier Sihle Zikalala said in a statement.

December 02 2020 - 17:14

Eastern Cape tops excess deaths log as Covid-19 infections surge in province

Fresh evidence of the Eastern Cape's Covid-19 surge arrived on Wednesday in the Medical Research Council's weekly report on excess deaths.

The Eastern Cape is now the province with the most excess deaths since May 6, when the local outbreak of the global pandemic started to have a noticeable affect on mortality.

By November 24 it had chalked up 13,602 excess deaths. These are deaths which exceed the number predicted based on statistics from 2018 and 2019.

December 02 2020 - 16:21

Western Cape to welcome visitors, but will clamp down on Covid-19 violators

The Western Cape is facing its biggest balancing act to date: reviving the economy over the festive season, while holding back a wave of Covid-19 resurgence.

Because of this, the province’s disaster centre has called on locals to “work with” - and not against - authorities.

“We cannot wait to welcome visitors to our municipalities at the end of a very tough year but we are alerting people to the fact that Covid-19 numbers are increasing,” said local government, environmental affairs and development planning MEC Anton Bredell.

December 02 2020 - 14:34

Booze restrictions on cards as government considers tighter Covid-19 regulations

The government is likely to implement tighter localised restrictions, including tighter restrictions on the sale of alcohol, to curb the spread of Covid-19 in hotspot areas as infections surge in parts of the Eastern Cape and Western Cape.

Business Day was reliably informed that the health department has recommended to the national coronavirus command council (NCCC), which met on Tuesday, that the government will also reduce the maximum size of indoor gatherings and implement an earlier curfew.

News24 reported on Wednesday that the NCCC agreed that a 10pm curfew be put in place in Covid-19 hotspots around the country, that alcohol sales be restricted from Monday to Thursday, and that bars and taverns close by 9pm.

December 02 2020 - 14:33

Alcohol ban may be 'too late' say experts as calls mount amid surge in Covid-19 cases

Experts say it may be too late for government to implement strict alcohol regulations during the festive season due to the increase in Covid-19 infections.

This follows reports that the national coronavirus command council had agreed to a 10pm curfew in hotspot areas across the country and restrictions placed on the sale of alcohol, including trading times.

On Wednesday, the Southern African Alcohol Policy Alliance in SA (Saapa SA) called on government to urgently put alcohol restrictions in place ahead of the festive season due to the drastic rise in positive Covid-19 cases.

December 02 2020 - 14:10

Covid-19: 'We are going to be very strict,' Motsoaledi warns Zimbabwean travellers

For many Zimbabweans, the cost of the Covid-19 tests necessary to cross the border will make the annual return home unaffordable.

Many Zimbabweans living and working in SA travel back home at the end of the year to spend the Christmas and New Year holidays with their families.

However, several told GroundUp they would not be able to afford the test which both the Zimbabwean and SA governments demand.

December 02 2020 - 13:23

WHO tightens guidelines on mask-wearing in Covid-19 areas

People living in areas with where Covid-19 is spreading should always wear masks in shops, workplaces and schools that lack adequate ventilation, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Wednesday.

If they cannot maintain physical distancing of at least one metre, people in those indoor locations - including children and students aged 12 or over - should also wear a mask even if the spaces are well ventilated, it said in a tightening of its guidelines.

They should also wear masks outdoors if physical distancing cannot be maintained, it said.

—Reuters

December 02 2020 - 11:48

Covid-19 claims 17 lives in Nelson Mandela Bay in 24 hours as virus surges

Seventeen people with Covid-19 have died within 24 hours in Nelson Mandela Bay.

Acting mayor Thsonono Buyeye said the latest report tabled by the health department on December 1, during the city’s Covid-19 disaster management forum meeting, painted a grim picture.

“We have learnt that in the past 24 hours in our hospitals, we recorded 17 deaths - 14 of those occurred in the private sector and three in the public sector,” Buyeye said in a statement on Tuesday.

December 02 2020 - 11:36

Italy's health minister says Covid vaccines to be free, distribution in Q1 2021

Italy will launch a massive, free coronavirus vaccination programme early next year, with health workers and the elderly to be given priority, Health Minister Roberto Speranza told parliament on Wednesday.

Speranza said the government had options to buy 202 million Covid-19 vaccine shots from various companies.

Italy was the first Western country hit by the virus, registering 56,361 Covid-19 deaths since the outbreak emerged in February, the second highest toll in Europe after Britain's. It has also registered 1.62 million cases to date.

—Reuters

December 02 2020 - 11:31

France to make borders checks to stop people skiing abroad

France will make random borders checks to stop people getting infected with Covid-19 by crossing into countries where ski resorts remain open, Prime Minister Jean Castex said on Wednesday.

The measures, also aimed at appeasing French resorts operators complaining of an uneven playing field, will apply to France's borders with Switzerland and Spain, where it is expected ski slopes will be open during the festive season.

"The goal is to avoid French citizens getting contaminated. That will be done by installing random checks at the borders," Castex told BFM TV, reiterating France's decision to keep its ski lifts closed at Christmas.

December 02 2020 - 10:51

Covid stalks the Sunshine Coast

Popular holiday towns in the Sarah Baartman district, in the Eastern Cape, are buckling under the strain of Covid-19 as death numbers spike, health workers fall ill and usually lucrative festive season businesses look at shutting their doors.

Port Alfred, Kenton-on-Sea and Bushman's River Mouth face their bleakest festive season in decades after the Kenton/Bushmans Chamber of Business and Tourism on Tuesday submitted a proposal to Ndlambe municipality for shared accommodation facilities to close and big festivals to be put on hold as the virus ravages the district.

Some doctors are so run off their feet attending to coronavirus patients that they could not even spare a few minutes to speak to DispatchLIVE. So critical is the situation that doctors have little choice but to make home visits.

DispatchLIVE

December 02 2020 - 10:40

'Nurses have seen the worst — please protect yourself from the coronavirus'

A nurse at a Pretoria hospital, Phumudzo Mbedzi, said after being in the war against Covid-19 for almost a year, she shivers when she thinks of a possible resurgence of the coronavirus.

The 33-year-old said the year has been stressful for all health workers in the country.

“When this started, everyone was scared. We were told to dump our leave and get to work. We were working because we had to,” she said.

December 02 2020 - 10:15

Taiwan says Covid 'passports' would be a good idea

Covid-19 "passports" to show peoples' inoculation and infection history will be hard to do in practice but are a good idea, Taiwan Health Minister Chen Shih-chung said on Wednesday, offering support to a means to get global travel going again.

Global aviation body IATA said last month it is developing a set of mobile apps to help passengers navigate Covid-19 travel restrictions and securely share test and vaccine certificates with airlines and governments.

That news came shortly after Australian airline Qantas said it would insist in future that international travellers have a Covid-19 vaccination before they fly, describing the move as "a necessity".

December 02 2020 - 10:00

UK approves Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, first in the world

Britain on Wednesday became the first country in the world to approve the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for use and said that it will be rolled out from early next week.

A vaccine is seen as the best chance for the world to get back to some semblance of normality amid a pandemic which has killed nearly 1.5 million people and upended the global economy.

“The government has today accepted the recommendation from the independent Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to approve Pfizer-BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine for use,” the government said.

December 02 2020 - 09:57

Covid-free for days, Australian state resumes singing, dancing, religious services

Australia's most populous state said that from Monday it would remove limits on the number of people at weddings, bars and religious services and end a ban on public venue dancing as a run of coronavirus-free days prompted a broad downgrade of social distancing rules.

The changes announced by New South Wales (NSW) on Wednesday come in time for Australia's summer holidays and Christmas celebrations, and mark the biggest lifting of precautionary measures since nationwide lockdowns began in March to slow the spread of Covid-19.

December 02 2020 - 09:34

US says ready for immediate domestic shipment of Covid-19 vaccines

The US Transportation Department said Tuesday it has made preparations to enable the "immediate mass shipment" of Covid-19 vaccines and completed all necessary regulatory measures.

The department said US agencies have been coordinating with private sector companies that will carry vaccines from manufacturing facilities to distribution centers and inoculation points.

It added it has established "appropriate safety requirements for all potential hazards involved in shipping the vaccine, including standards for dry ice and lithium batteries used in cooling."

December 02 2020 - 08:30

POLL | Will you travel this festive season?

Interprovincial travel is top of the list for some South Africans who want to spend the festive season with loved ones after months of lockdown.

The start of December was met with excitement from those looking to travel, but health experts have warned this could trigger the spread of Covid-19.

Chief medical specialist of rural health and dean of the University of KwaZulu-Natal's School of Nursing and Public Health Prof Mosa Moshabela said the surge in infections in the Eastern Cape could trigger a surge in more provinces early next year.

December 02 2020 - 08:00

It's probably a logistics problem, health expert says about Gauteng's Covid-19 stats discrepancy

The discrepancy in Gauteng's Covid-19 cases could be nothing more than a logistical challenge.

This is according to African Health Research Institute deputy director Prof Thumbi Ndung'u, who said it will be difficult to determine where the discrepancy came from.

Last week, health minister Zweli Mkhize had to exclude Gauteng Covid-19 statistics from the national stats as he said the province had to reconcile its data.

December 02 2020 - 07:34

Children head to diamond mines in pandemic-hit Central African Republic

Since the coronavirus forced his school to close in March, Papin has been working six days a week at a diamond mine in the Central African Republic (CAR) - hauling sacks of mud and rubble under a hot sun.

He is among a dozen children working at the open-pit mine near the southern town of Ngoto, where about 100 miners use shovels and sieves to scour the red earth for diamonds. It is back-breaking work and Papin longs to return to the classroom.

"I came here to help my big brother," Papin, who said he was 16 but appeared younger, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation as the site supervisor looked on, the few remaining trees offering little respite from the glare.

"I prefer school. I prefer to think, here the work is too hard," said Papin, whose name has been changed to protect his identity.

Reuters

December 02 2020 - 07:28

'We buried them because of Covid-19': Nurses drained as virus cases climb

With the year 2020 drawing to a close, nurses across SA say they are emotionally and physically drained as they battle on the Covid-19 frontline.

Sister Lama Peega, who works at Carletonville district hospital on the West Rand, has been a nurse for more than 25 years. She has not has taken leave since President Cyril Ramaphosa declared the national state of disaster in March.

“We were expected to leave our families behind to go and work. It has not been an easy task. We panicked when we were told to work during the pandemic. Having to go back home after a shift was very traumatic because you had to go share a bed with your husband and hug your children. It was scary. I don’t know how we survived,” Peega said.