South African Covid-19 News and Discussions 2

[Azg]

qualifications for jobs that can risk mass death have always been in fashion. it's why civil engineers, doctors, pilots , etc go study.

tell me: do you just troll? is that the whole thing? or does your mom make you get exercise some times?

Calm your tits.

John Steenhuisen's lack of post-matric qualification back in spotlight

John Steenhuisen?s lack of a post-matric qualification has once again become a bone of contention after he became the DA's Parliamentary leader.

www.iol.co.za

Get back to discussing COVID-19.

 

[Lupus]

Calm your tits.

John Steenhuisen's lack of post-matric qualification back in spotlight

John Steenhuisen?s lack of a post-matric qualification has once again become a bone of contention after he became the DA's Parliamentary leader.

www.iol.co.za

Get back to discussing COVID-19.

Compared to the post standard 5 of our previous president?

 

[Azg]

Compared to the post standard 5 of our previous president?

No. The issue of qualifications was raised re a minister not being qualified enough because she has a journalism degree.

 

[nivek]

Yeah I got my haircut like that.

Me too

 

[daelm]

Calm your tits.

John Steenhuisen's lack of post-matric qualification back in spotlight

John Steenhuisen?s lack of a post-matric qualification has once again become a bone of contention after he became the DA's Parliamentary leader.

www.iol.co.za

Get back to discussing COVID-19.

uhhhhhh...we are.

the minister in question is the minister of social development and she's announcing that the couldn't predict the impact of COVID on the poor in South Africa, and the consequent carnage.

on a related note, the idea you have that you will determine what people do or don't discuss is pretty ****ing weird. not sure you're aware of that. if you weren't, you're welcome. if you're moderating, the normal procedure is to read the thread for context, and DM people you think are otherwise distracted. in-line commenting perpetuates the discussion.

 

[daelm]

No. The issue of qualifications was raised re a minister not being qualified enough because she has a journalism degree.

that's correct. the Department's core functions are:

Management and oversight over social security, encompassing social assistance and social insurance policies that aim to prevent and alleviate poverty in the event of life cycle risks such as loss of income due to unemployment, disability, old age or death occurring.

Developmental social welfare services that provide support to reduce poverty, vulnerability and the impact of HIV and AIDS through sustainable development programmes in partnership with implementing agents such as State-funded institutions, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), Community-Based Organisations (CBOs) and Faith-Based Organisations (FBOs).

edit: the Minister leading that department stated on record that she had not been aware that COVID and the COVID response would have such a big impact on poor people. in her Cabinet role, she's responsible for identifying, defining, managing, and leading the programmes that alleviate poverty. so, without even taking COVID into account, she's indicted herself and her performance in the role. however, more immediately, since the recent contortions the government has made to position Cabinet as the actual Disaster Response Centre (and, somehow, the Disaster sub-committee at the same time), she's therefore necessarily been part of determining the response while stating that she had no idea that those decisions would impact the poor. you and everyone else who reads that statement by her should be horrified by the detachment from consequence it exposes, and the utter indifference to the impact of her actions that it implies.

 

[daelm]

John Steenhuisen's lack of post-matric qualification back in spotlight

John Steenhuisen?s lack of a post-matric qualification has once again become a bone of contention after he became the DA's Parliamentary leader.

www.iol.co.za

yes. and is he was put in a specialist development post, there would be problems. what is your point?

 

[daelm]

but thanks. watching, over the last week, the utter inability to discuss complex issues with any degree of nuance or honesty - such as (a) the government's contradictory response to COVID, a response that has significantly highlighted all the fault lines in government and Cabinet, (b) its flailing under legal challenges, (c) its overt and classist attack on poor people, (d) its repeated disregard for law, and (e) its embrace of a particularly nasty and thuggish form of authoritarian force that looks exactly like 1989 - has educated me. specifically, it's reminded me that engagement with people who's preferred online persona is to be a reflexive bot is always a waste of precious life.

good reminder to have.

 

[TheChamp]

John Steenhuisen's lack of post-matric qualification back in spotlight

John Steenhuisen?s lack of a post-matric qualification has once again become a bone of contention after he became the DA's Parliamentary leader.

www.iol.co.za

yes. and is he was put in a specialist development post, there would be problems. what is your point?

The MEC of the same "specialist" department in the WC only has a matric certificate. Rant about that when you get time in your busy schedule.

 

[daelm]

The MEC of the same "specialist" department in the WC only has a matric certificate. Rant about that when you get time in your busy schedule.

happy to. i'm not a supporter of them either and you can see why in their responses to the same crisis. (edit: let me be even clearer: they're a wishy-washy, largely neo-liberal holdover, who's vacillation and inability to let go of their past when called on will haunt them forever.) however, the fact that they're idiots doesn't make her any smarter on the subject, and her reach and national impact is a hell of a lot greater, both before COVID and now.

reading your - limited and usually not informative - contribution here, you seem to think that every conversation is a zero-sum, binary, "either-or" kind of engagement. you do realize that these issues are much more important than whether you get to feel like you policed the internet, right? this is not a theoretical issue. do something valuable with your time as well as spend it here:

Hot Meals for Homeless People and Refugees

The Soup Kitchen is a point of contact for homeless people and refugees. Once a week, hot meals are distributed here.

www.rokpa.org

Soup kitchen serves 1,500 meals to Joburg communities

As the national lockdown continues to leave many destitute without a warm plate of food, a local soup kitchen called Soup Kitchen with Dignity has created and distributed 1,500 meals over three days for vulnerable communities in Johannesburg.

www.iol.co.za

they take both donations and volunteer work.

edit: FeedSA specifically needs donations, so here's their link: http://www.feedsa.co.za/covid19-action-plan/

edit: climb in here as well: https://giftofthegivers.org/disaster-response/intervention-plan-for-covid-19/

i'd donate time or money to the smaller operations first if you're forced to choose because they tend to go under the radar but people within their reach specifically depend on them. (homeless people are localized and generally aren't catching an Uber to the next food station if the one near them stops operating.)

now i'm going to put you on ignore. if you do decide to affect people's lives for the better, you're welcome to let me know. (or not, frankly.)

 

[Grant]

And there was me thinking wtf, this is the cigarette and alcohol thread....then I realised I was actually in the wrong thread

 

[Grant]

So this is bizarre - why would they not disclose :


City of Johannesburg - 6071 cases
The Soweto and Inner City region continue to be the Joburg region’s local hotspots, with cases on the increase in these regions as displayed below. The Sandton and Randburg regions also had over 500 active cases.

The Gauteng does not disclose deaths per region, thus, active cases in the region are estimated.

Region A: Diepsloot, Kya Sands, Dainfern, Midrand, Lanseria, Fourways, Ivory Park – 571 cases, 318 active (estimated)

Region B: Randburg, Rosebank, Emmarentia, Greenside, Melville, Mayfair, Northcliff, Parktown, Parktown North – 779 cases, 543 active (estimated)

Region C: Roodepoort, Constantia Kloof, Northgate, Florida, Bram Fishersville – 659 cases, 480 active (estimated)

Region D: Doornkop, Soweto, Dobsonville, Protea Glen – 1017 cases, 720 active (estimated)

Regions E: Alexandra, Wynberg, Sandton, Orange Grove, Houghton – 919 cases, 559 active (estimated)

Region F: Inner City, Johannesburg South – 1 411 cases, 1093 active (estimated)

Region G: Orange Farm, Weilers Farm, Ennerdale, Lenasia, Eldorado Park, Protea South – 436 cases, 288 active (estimated)

With 1000 new infections, Gauteng now has over 8600 active Covid-19 cases

About 1000 more people were infected with Covid-19 in Gauteng as the province's infections surged to over 12 193.

www.iol.co.za

 

[daelm]

So this is bizarre - why would they not disclose :

honestly, my intuition, watching this unfold, is that testing reach is very poor and therefore the majority of the numbers we're provided are extrapolated. that's the hidden reality underpinning all of this.

edit: extrapolated from a wider range of assumptions, i mean, with data from actual testing playing a negligible role. interpretation of testing data is difficult as it is, given that there are so many factors you have to control for, and in SA, the demographic divide introduces even more. if you add in that testing reach is poor, the empirical portion of the extrapolation likely becomes meaningless.

 

[daelm]

https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2020/04/06/what-ordinary-flu-and-pneumonia-death-numbers/

edit: this is where the numbers are going to hide. see Texas, California, New York, Michigan, Illinois, and Florida year-on-year. (one of my data geek friends pointed this to me because she caught the Florida numbers and they looked weird.)

take Texas - in the period Feb and March, they report 6 COVID deaths but in that same period, the total number of deaths attributed to pneumonia alone is 1 825, which is around 600% of the equivalent death total from both pneumonia and influenza in 2018. California's around 410%; Florida is around 630%. same pattern plays out again and again.

realistically, when this is all dusted, you're going to want to look for anomalous spike patterns in reportable non-COVID mortality figures to try and get a sense of the whole.

	COVID-19 Deaths, Feb. 1- March 28	All Pneumonia Deaths, Feb. 1-March 28	2020 Pneumonia Deaths As a Percentage of All 2020 Deaths	Influenza and Pneumonia Deaths, March 2018
How the Recent Pneumonia Death Count Compares With Two Comparison Indicators
One of the comparison benchmarks is the number of all deaths for the same period — Feb. 1 through March 28. The other benchmark is the influenza and pneumonia death total for March 2018.
Alabama	0	408	5.0%	101
Alaska	0	23	3.9%	-
Arizona	0	523	5.0%	118
Arkansas	0	269	5.0%	61
California	54	3,136	6.7%	761
Colorado	21	334	4.8%	82
Connecticut	0	-	-	98
Delaware	0	50	4.5%	27
District of Columbia	0	58	6.3%	-
Florida	38	1,899	5.1%	301
Georgia	13	570	4.5%	149
Hawaii	0	118	6.2%	51
Idaho	1	110	4.6%	34
Illinois	9	1,155	6.2%	277
Indiana	0	599	5.6%	123
Iowa	0	295	5.9%	67
Kansas	3	240	5.4%	78
Kentucky	0	389	6.3%	91
Louisiana	44	258	3.8%	66
Maine	0	178	6.7%	38
Maryland	5	502	5.8%	116
Massachusetts	6	663	6.7%	163
Michigan	11	796	5.0%	199
Minnesota	4	407	5.3%	62
Mississippi	0	342	6.5%	82
Missouri	6	486	4.8%	161
Montana	0	66	4.4%	30
Nebraska	0	159	6.4%	62
Nevada	2	202	4.6%	54
New Hampshire	1	109	5.0%	40
New Jersey	43	694	5.3%	123
New Mexico	0	155	5.6%	39
New York	180	1,343	7.6%	448
New York City	579	1,012	5.3%	-
North Carolina	0	151	4.9%	213
North Dakota	0	74	6.6%	15
Ohio	0	676	4.0%	250
Oklahoma	0	365	6.3%	71
Oregon	5	230	4.2%	68
Pennsylvania	19	880	5.0%	328
Rhode Island	0	50	3.3%	19
South Carolina	1	369	4.4%	72
South Dakota	1	70	5.5%	32
Tennessee	0	715	5.8%	156
Texas	6	1,825	5.6%	301
Utah	1	168	5.1%	37
Vermont	1	42	4.6%	12
Virginia	4	459	3.9%	125
Washington	92	561	5.7%	114
West Virginia	0	140	5.5%	65
Wisconsin	0	376	4.1%	126
Wyoming	0	42	5.8%	14
TOTAL	1,150	23,729		6,120
MEDIAN			5.2%
Source: National Center for Health Statistics, COVID-19 report for April 3; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Underlying Cause of Death database.

.

 

[noxibox]

John Steenhuisen's lack of post-matric qualification back in spotlight

John Steenhuisen?s lack of a post-matric qualification has once again become a bone of contention after he became the DA's Parliamentary leader.

www.iol.co.za

yes. and is he was put in a specialist development post, there would be problems. what is your point?

That would depend. Perhaps someone is in that position because they're strong on organisation and co-ordination. Perhaps they take the trouble to study up as much as they can. Perhaps they surround themselves with experts.

The ANC minister has clearly done none of these things. So she's clueless about the department she is supposed to manage and she is in fact so unbelievably incompetent she has failed to surround herself with experts who could have informed her.

 

[daelm]

That would depend. Perhaps someone is in that position because they're strong on organisation and co-ordination. Perhaps they take the trouble to study up as much as they can. Perhaps they surround themselves with experts.

The ANC minister has clearly done none of these things. So she's clueless about the department she is supposed to manage and she is in fact so unbelievably incompetent she has failed to surround herself with experts who could have informed her.

maybe, but when it comes to government, i'm a big fan of politicians being allowed to fill generalist positions but being barred from specialist positions. if we'd had qualified specialists in a number of critical roles (rather than jobs-for-friends) for the last fifteen years, the country would look different.

 

[BeerIsNotGood...]

maybe, but when it comes to government, i'm a big fan of politicians being allowed to fill generalist positions but being barred from specialist positions. if we'd had qualified specialists in a number of critical roles (rather than jobs-for-friends) for the last fifteen years, the country would look different.

Sounds like you're part of the problem

 

[daelm]

Sounds like you're part of the problem

see qualifier: "... but being barred from specialist positions". the crux is that when you rationalize a bureaucracy, there are not that many generalist positions.

 

[daelm]

personally, I'd like a state structure that rotated roles amongst the best of its people bearing in mind their ability and skills, and capped salaries dramatically, rather than what we have. which is a popularity contest, with the promise of an infinitely expanding blank cheque (and the ability to auction off communal assets) going to the winner.

but we're very far from that, if ever.

 

[BeerIsNotGood...]

personally, I'd like a state structure that rotated roles amongst the best of its people bearing in mind their ability and skills, and capped salaries dramatically, rather than what we have. which is a popularity contest, with the promise of an infinitely expanding blank cheque (and the ability to auction off communal assets) going to the winner.

but we're very far from that, if ever.

Limited government based on lite technocracy/meritocracy for me