South African Covid-19 News and Discussions 3

[IdlePhaedrus]

44 percent


Increase in Limpopo as well...

In the WC on the 25th it hit 52.53 and dropped to 50.32 on the 26th:



On the 29th we were down to 46.1. Am hoping that the decline continues, but these numbers won't have caught up with Christmas and New Years yet

 

[IdlePhaedrus]

Coronavirus: Israel leads vaccine race with 12% given jab

With more than 1m people inoculated, Israel has by far the highest vaccination rate in the world.

www.bbc.com

And Africa's "most industrialised nation" is nowhere to be seen.

 

[The_Right_Honourable_Brit]

Good that more and more pressure is being heaped on the ANC regarding vaccine rollout (or lack thereof).

GROUNDUP: Health workers demand vaccine rollout

Thousands sign letter calling for Department of Health to act urgently

t.co

 

[IdlePhaedrus]

Good that more and more pressure is being heaped on the ANC regarding vaccine rollout (or lack thereof).

GROUNDUP: Health workers demand vaccine rollout

Thousands sign letter calling for Department of Health to act urgently

t.co

The DA's urgent request to convene parliament and debate the vaccine before the end of 2020 was denied and pushed to February by the ANC speaker. No rush then, Africa time will do...

DA not impressed as Speaker turns down request for urgent debate on Covid-19 vaccine plan | News24

National Assembly Speaker Thandi Modise has denied the DA's request to reconvene the House for an urgent debate on the plan before the end of the year.

www.news24.com

 

[R13...]

The DA's urgent request to convene parliament and debate the vaccine before the end of 2020 was denied and pushed to February by the ANC speaker. No rush then, Africa time will do...

DA not impressed as Speaker turns down request for urgent debate on Covid-19 vaccine plan | News24

National Assembly Speaker Thandi Modise has denied the DA's request to reconvene the House for an urgent debate on the plan before the end of the year.

www.news24.com

It's not like a debate is going to benefit anything. The DA just want an opportunity to show up the ANC. The ANC have stolen any money that could have been gone toward purchasing a vaccine in time. The officials figures say PPE corruption affects 10bn worth, so at the markups the cadres were charging that's at least 5bn that could have gone toward a vaccine. And that's just the moneys in official reports. There was a bunch of other corruption related to sanitizing schools, PPE (before the big pig outs), etc.

 

[doodlesZHS]

Andy, GSH in Cape Town has built a parallel system to handle COVID and non COVID patients. This is a first. This has never happened before. The state healthcare system in SA is running at full throttle at the best of times but with COVID that's a huge additional load.

Bear in mind also that the situation of the economy would be bad regardless as all foreign tourism would have dried up anyway and our exports would not be as popular abroad even if we didn't do anything. At best you could say internal consumption has been hampered to a degree.

Can you elaborate on the parallel system,I thought most hospitals(whether government or private ) are repurposing wards in to covid-19 ones and running them parallel with the non-covid ones?

 

[IdlePhaedrus]

It's not like a debate is going to benefit anything. The DA just want an opportunity to show up the ANC. The ANC have stolen any money that could have been gone toward purchasing a vaccine in time. The officials figures say PPE corruption affects 10bn worth, so at the markups the cadres were charging that's at least 5bn that could have gone toward a vaccine. And that's just the moneys in official reports. There was a bunch of other corruption related to sanitizing schools, PPE (before the big pig outs), etc.

The only benefit, as it was political grandstanding, would be that it would come to more people's attention, which is probably why it was denied in the first instance.

BUT, pushing it out to February is irresponsible, unless the executive reveals their plans and progress by themselves. And what are the chances of that happening?

As much as the DA has fallen out of favour in my book, this was the correct stance for them to take given that they are still the official opposition, and it is their job to hold the executive to account.

 

[neoprema]

It's not like a debate is going to benefit anything. The DA just want an opportunity to show up the ANC. The ANC have stolen any money that could have been gone toward purchasing a vaccine in time. The officials figures say PPE corruption affects 10bn worth, so at the markups the cadres were charging that's at least 5bn that could have gone toward a vaccine. And that's just the moneys in official reports. There was a bunch of other corruption related to sanitizing schools, PPE (before the big pig outs), etc.

Government has stolen all the money for vaccines (or will steal what is still to come) and bury it in excuses such as meeting refrigeration requirements and local production blah blah.

The private sector is going to bail us out of this mess, as they have to do with everything else Govt touches. While Mkhize will keep spewing rubbish about why we can't expect a vaccine sooner than Malawi, or Somalia.

 

[chrisc]

I was told that Discovery is to make a plan to vaccinate all their 2 million members

No idea when

 

[The_Right_Honourable_Brit]

I was told that Discovery is to make a plan to vaccinate all their 2 million members

No idea when

I wouldn't be surprised. The government will be more than happy for the private sector to partially bail them out, regardless of the predictable furore over equity issues.

 

[Azg]

I was told that Discovery is to make a plan to vaccinate all their 2 million members

No idea when

Makes business sense for the medical aid societies, if that will keep their members healthy.

Whatever their plans this will probably take some time, as demand is currently way higher than supply even if you have the money to pay for the vaccine.

 

[R13...]

I was told that Discovery is to make a plan to vaccinate all their 2 million members

No idea when

I wonder if they'll be sourcing it themselves or buying from government. Doubt government would allow any of its allotment to go to private medical aids. Unless they can somehow spin it to promote the NHI.

 

[IdlePhaedrus]

It's not like a debate is going to benefit anything. The DA just want an opportunity to show up the ANC. The ANC have stolen any money that could have been gone toward purchasing a vaccine in time. The officials figures say PPE corruption affects 10bn worth, so at the markups the cadres were charging that's at least 5bn that could have gone toward a vaccine. And that's just the moneys in official reports. There was a bunch of other corruption related to sanitizing schools, PPE (before the big pig outs), etc.

I just had an interesting "what if" thought.

What if the Provincial Western Cape government went ahead and negotiated vaccine stock for the Western Cape outside of the WHO Covax initiative and any bilateral negotiations National might or might not be having with the pharmaceutical industry? Perhaps working in tandem with the private health care industry? And perhaps setting up a donation fund similar to Solidarity (which appears to have failed) to do so?

SAHPRA and the ANC would be an obstacle I expect, but it would be an interesting project, and if it failed, the collected monies could go somewhere useful outside National Guavament's greedy paws.

DA might even get my vote back if they did something like that. Are you out there @AlanWinde and @JohnSteenhuisen? Time is short, and my pipe dreams are long....

 

[neoprema]

2 days into 2021 and this is in the news already.... (source: CNN)

Hunting for 'Disease X'​

In the Congo rainforest, the doctor who discovered Ebola warns of deadly viruses yet to come​

'Humanity faces an unknown number of new and potentially fatal viruses emerging from Africa's tropical rainforests, according to Professor Jean-Jacques Muyembe Tamfum, who helped discover the Ebola virus in 1976 and has been on the frontline of the hunt for new pathogens ever since.
"We are now in a world where new pathogens will come out," he told CNN. "And that's what constitutes a threat for humanity."'

Can this bloody planet strop trying to kill us now!!

 

[Kola_CT]

2 days into 2021 and this is in the news already.... (source: CNN)

Hunting for 'Disease X'​

In the Congo rainforest, the doctor who discovered Ebola warns of deadly viruses yet to come​

'Humanity faces an unknown number of new and potentially fatal viruses emerging from Africa's tropical rainforests, according to Professor Jean-Jacques Muyembe Tamfum, who helped discover the Ebola virus in 1976 and has been on the frontline of the hunt for new pathogens ever since.
"We are now in a world where new pathogens will come out," he told CNN. "And that's what constitutes a threat for humanity."'

Can this bloody planet strop trying to kill us now!!

Self defense...

 

[IdlePhaedrus]

2 days into 2021 and this is in the news already.... (source: CNN)

Hunting for 'Disease X'​

In the Congo rainforest, the doctor who discovered Ebola warns of deadly viruses yet to come​

'Humanity faces an unknown number of new and potentially fatal viruses emerging from Africa's tropical rainforests, according to Professor Jean-Jacques Muyembe Tamfum, who helped discover the Ebola virus in 1976 and has been on the frontline of the hunt for new pathogens ever since.
"We are now in a world where new pathogens will come out," he told CNN. "And that's what constitutes a threat for humanity."'

Can this bloody planet strop trying to kill us now!!

The planet is not trying to kill us. We are killing the planet. My bets are on the planet in the end. It is rather enduring and would ultimately do best without us...

The human race may make up the next carbon layer. Wouldn't that be ironic?

Anyhoo, going to go watch the Germans fight the English in submarines circa 1943.

 

[Nod]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1345346121862967298

 

[StrontiumDog]

I was told that Discovery is to make a plan to vaccinate all their 2 million members

No idea when

Discovery allocates funds for COVID-19 vaccine

Discovery has allocated funding for members to receive the coronavirus vaccine.

www.enca.com

Monday 28 December 2020 - 9:07am

Discovery Health has allocated funding for members to receive the coronavirus vaccine.

Discovery Health's Chief Commercial Officer, Ronald Whelan, says the company is working closely with both government and the private sector to ensure the entire country receives these vaccinations.

"Discovery has allocated funding for vaccinating all members of the scheme," he said.

"In fact, we got board approval a good six weeks ago on that, secondly it will be for all members of the medical scheme but I think I should mention that we will need to follow strict prioritisation criteria."

For more, watch the interview with Prof Adrian Puren, HoD National Institute for Communicable Diseases above.

Not sure if this is the interview they are referring to [edit: it's not]

I found it at the link below:

COVID-19: Who should get the vaccine first?

Professor Puren said the second COVID-19 wave will paint a clearer picture of who will need the vaccine more.

enca.com

 

[StrontiumDog]

Well, let's just hope you are not in a serious car accident and are unable to tell the paramedics you are on medical aid and they send you off to an inferior state hospital - out of their fear you will add to the thousands of non paying patients

Do medical aids offer some sort of wearable to indicate membership? Someone I know almost didn't get taken to the correct hospital because the paramedics didn't know what medical aid and what plan he was on. Then once he got to hospital and ICU, the medical staff wasn't aware of a couple of important pieces of information relating to his medical history, they only found out a week later from family members who didn't realise that the medical staff / hospital were unawares...

 

[RedViking]

Is 2021 going to be worse thar 2020, now that people are starting to get sick more at an alarming rate and government already spent all the Covid funds which was never properly used to prepare for what was expected?

Is South Africa not worse of now than before?