Category: dearSA

Many countries are refusing to open their schools for fear of a prompting a second wave of coronavirus infections. But their policies would appear to be flatly contradicted by evidence from Iceland. There, a company called deCODE Genetics, in association with the country’s Directorate of Health and the National University Hospital, has analyzed the results of coronavirus tests on 36,500 people. The tests identified 1,801 cases of people suffering from the disease — and 10 deaths. Each case was carefully tracked. In not a single case could the researchers find evidence of a child passing on the disease to their parents. The company’s CEO, Kari Stefansson, revealed the findings in an interview carried on the British Science Museum website. He suggests the fact that few children suffer any symptoms, and are less likely to cough, is an important factor.

The Icelandic study reinforces the results of a review of evidence last week by the Royal College of Paediatricians and Child Health, which said it couldn’t find a single documented case of a child under 10 passing COVID-19 to an adult. In one case a nine-year-old boy returning from a skiing holiday in the Alps was found to be infected with Sars-CoV-2, the virus which causes COVID-19, as well as influenza and the common cold. He didn’t pass Sars-CoV-2 to anyone, in spite of coming into contact with 170 children. He did, however, pass the flu and cold to his siblings — but not Sars-CoV-2.

It ought to be pretty strong evidence that opening schools is safe, and is among the first moves which should be taken to exit from lockdown. But don’t bet against the unions squashing plans to open before September at the earliest.

Article by Spectator USA

South Africa’s tourism industry is preparing for the country’s lockdown restrictions to last beyond the end of 2020.

Presenting in a webinar on Monday (11 May), South African Tourism chief executive office Sisa Ntshona said that the industry was still working on ‘guesstimates’, but that based on current projections, the country would only reach level 1 of its lockdown by Q1 2021.

“We have no clue as to when we will move to level 3 as a country, or level 2 or level 1. We also have no clue as to how long we will stay at level 4. It will all depend on the trajectory of the pandemic.”

He added that tourism in the country will only become partially active at level 2 of the lockdown, with the sector beginning to fully open up again at level 1.

“Based on the current trajectory we are seeing, where September is where we have peak coronavirus cases, it is likely that level 2 will kicks in around November and level 1 kicks in around January 2021,” Ntshona said.

He said that this trajectory is also based on government’s current classifications of sectors and that it may decide to open tourism in the country at an earlier date if the sector takes steps to reduce risks.

“The conversation that is happening is ‘what can be done’ to de-risk the sector. In the current form it is level 1, however, it can be re-rated to a lesser risk and can move up the scale.”

This aligns with commentary by Intellidex analyst, Peter Attard Montalto, who said that South Africans should prepare for a roller-coaster of level changes for at least the next 12 months.

“Overall there is still no clear strategy from government on how and when – based on either medical or economic drivers – the country or metros should be moved between levels,” he said.

Because of the pressures from businesses, which are eager to get back to economic activity, and the reality of the pandemic – being that the peak of infections is yet to hit, and a second peak is expected to follow as more relaxed restrictions take root – Attard Montalto expects a baseline scenario of many ups and downs in the coming months.

“The national lockdown may be reduced to level 3 for a month or so, and then back to level 4, and then into level 5 for the peak through July and August,” he said.

“This, before a return slowly back to level 2 by the end of the year, and level 1 in the first quarter of next year – before a ramp back up on a second wave in the middle of 2021.”

Article by BusinessTech

This follows an earlier announcement by the minister that Grade 7 and 12 learners would be able to return to school on 1 June 2020, on the basis they were on the cusp of completing primary and high school, and required special consideration.

DearSA’s letter points out that the reason cited for the lockdown is the need to slow the spread of the disease and “flatten the curve” of infection so as not to overburden the health care system with Covid-19 cases.

Writing on behalf of DearSA, Daniel Eloff of attorney Hurter Spies, says it supports government’s campaign to curtail the spread of the virus, but has urged it to follow a data-driven approach to decision-making over lockdown regulations. With the passage of time, more data has come to light calling into question the severity of the current Alert Level 4 lockdown, particularly on children of school-going age.

Citing research from the Actuarial Society of SA, DearSA points out that children aged 19 and below have a minuscule chance of contracting the virus. Only 0.4% of all cases showing symptoms that require hospitalisation are drawn from the 0-19 age bracket in SA. For children up to the age of 9, the percentage of symptomatic cases requiring hospitalisation falls to 0.1% of the total.

“Lockdown measures cannot stop the virus from spreading, but they can slow down the speed of infections,” says the DearSA letter to the minister. “Lockdowns will not save the lives of those who contract Covid-19 and do not require hospitalisation. They also do not save the lives of those who contract the virus and would sadly and regrettably succumb to the disease even if they gained access to an ICU bed. They only assist those who contract the virus and would survive if they were hospitalised but are unable to receive such care because the health system has been overrun.”

Multi-country studies further show that children are at extremely low risk of infection relative to adults. Joint research by Chinese medical authorities and the World Health Organisation show negligible instances of child-to-parent transmission.

It is vitally important that children be allowed back to school on 1 June 2020, as various studies have shown the importance of early learning for later life development.

The Lancet Early Childhood Development Series emphasises the importance of the first five years of a child’s life. These are the formative years where “factors such as adequate healthcare, good nutrition, good quality childcare and nurturing, a clean and safe environment, early learning and stimulation will, to a large extent, influence his/her future as an adult.”

The closure of schools has placed strain on families, and by allowing schools to reopen, this would have the added benefit of freeing up essential workers forced to remain home to care for their own children.

Based on the evidence now emerging after several weeks on collating data on Covid-19 cases, DearSA says keeping children under the age of 10 at home serves no purpose in slowing the spread of the virus, and urges the minister to reopen schools for those in this age bracket on 1 June 2020.

Contact Daniël Eloff of Hurter Spies Inc.
deloff@hurterspies.co.za
082 838 5290

Dear SA challenges government over e-commerce ban and 3-hour exercise limit

Attorneys for civil rights group DearSA today delivered a letter of demand to the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, challenging the government’s ban on e-commerce and its limitation on outside exercise to three hours a day.

The organisation has requested the government amend the Covid-19 lockdown regulations to allow for all forms of online retailing on the grounds that this would support rather than impede the campaign to stop the spread of the virus.

It also wants government to allow South Africans to engage in any form of non-group outdoor exercise during daylight hours, as opposed to the current daily allowance between the hours of 6h00 and 9h00.

Attorney for Dear SA, Daniel Eloff of Hurter Spies Inc, has also notified the minister that unless a response is received by the close of business on 14 May 2020, Dear SA will be compelled to seek urgent relief in court.

“Our client, however, trusts that unnecessary litigation could be avoided and look forward to your urgent response,” concludes Eloff’s letter to the minister.

The letter raises concerns that government decisions over the lockdown are ad hoc rather than data-driven, which has resulted in a potential massive economic overkill.

Cost of protracted lockdown to human life worse than the disease

The letter to the minister cites data from Pandemic Data and Analytics (PANDA) showing the years of life lost to South Africans as a result of the lockdown could be 29 times more costly to life than the disease itself.

PANDA estimates that nearly 14 million years of life could be lost to the population of SA as a result of the lockdown.

Massive overkill

Various economic studies, some of them by government itself, show that a prolonged lockdown will have a devastating impact on the economy, with the construction sector likely to suffer a 30% decline in employment. A study by SA-TIED suggests the financial and manufacturing sectors are likely to experience a 15% decline in employment if the lockdown is prolonged.

The effect of the lockdown will be a massive decline in the demand and supply of many industries, with particularly severe effects in the service sectors, such as restaurants, entertainment, tourism, travel and hotels, according to SA-TIED.

In a presentation to the Standing Committee on Finance, National Treasury recently warned that it was projecting between 3 and 7 million job losses as a result of a protracted lockdown to fight the spread of Covid-19.

Further data from the Actuarial Society of SA shows that the risks of Covid-19 are highly correlated with age, with more than half the cases requiring hospitalisation in SA occurring in the 70+ age group. Fewer than 5% of all cases requiring hospitalisation are aged below 40.

Lockdown measures cannot stop the virus from spreading, but they can slow down the speed of infections. Lockdowns will not save the lives of those who contract Covid-19 and do not require hospitalisation. They also do not save the lives of those who contract the virus and would sadly and regrettably succumb to the disease even if they gained access to an ICU bed. They only assist those who contract the virus and would survive if they were hospitalised but are unable to receive such care because the health system has been overrun.

Opening e-commerce would reduce contact between infected persons

Dear SA also points to a study showing that the key benefit of e-commerce is that it substantially reduces contact that would be experienced in physical stores. To therefore ban e-commerce on the grounds that this is unfair to bricks and mortar stores is irrational if the purpose is to stop the spread of the disease. Bricks and mortar stores are far more likely to accelerate their online offerings if allowed to do so.

The letter also cites studies from China showing that pandemic outbreaks are much less likely to spread outdoors than indoors. “This means people should be given more freedom to exercise outdoors during daylight hours,” says Dear SA. Limiting the exercise window to three hours a day creates congestion and raises the risk of transmission.

Dear SA says it is calling for a reasonable approach to regulations aimed at addressing the public health issue.

“I think we have to ask government to be a lot more considered, a lot more rational in the way decisions are taken.”

That’s the view of former finance minister Trevor Manuel, interviewed by Stephen Grootes about South Africa’s lockdown regulations on SAFM on Monday morning.

Manuel was speaking a day after publishing an op-ed in City Press which expressed deep concern over the violation of the South African Constitution by security forces policing lockdown.

“There are daily reports of the abuse of power by the security forces, including assaults with sjamboks; the arrest of citizens for the pettiest of infractions; the payment of admission of guilt fines by people desperate to get out of custody, and a long list of instances of misbehaviour,” Manuel wrote.

“I have not heard senior police and army officers, ministers or the president call out this behaviour.”

Speaking on SAfm, Manuel unflatteringly compared the behaviour of security forces under the current state of disaster to that of the apartheid military.

“Nowhere under apartheid emergency regulations would we tolerate that kind of thing. In fact, the voices that spoke out against apartheid were largely about the abuse of soldiers,” Manuel said.

“We saw policemen suspended for acting violently against communities under apartheid, under the state of emergency. So why should we be tolerant of the misbehaviour of soldiers here?”

The former finance minister suggested that the role of South African police, as in other countries, should be to “assist people” rather than for cops “to go from shop to shop picking on poor shopkeepers”.

Manuel stressed that the conduct of security forces was not the only aspect of South Africa’s lockdown which concerned him. He accused government of irrationality in a number of lockdown regulations.

“We must ensure that the economic rules are rational, and I think that a lot of the decisions that have been taken don’t pass the test of rationality,” Manuel said.

“The idea that you can only exercise for three hours a day – none of this passes the test of rationality.”

Manuel currently serves as the chairman of Old Mutual and as a senior adviser to the Rothschild Group. In April, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that Manuel would be deployed as one of the African Union’s special envoys to raise funds for Africa’s fight against Covid-19.

Manuel was at pains to acknowledge that the Covid-19 pandemic presents a “deep health crisis” to South Africa.

But he believes that the best approach to the crisis would see less heavy-handed policing, and more opportunity for “ordinary South Africans [to] own the changes that are necessary to ensure that we can lower the infection rates of Covid-19”. DM

Article originally published on Daily Maverick

The government has admitted to holding back information from the public on the Covid-19 pandemic, saying it is doing so to avoid panic.

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s spokesperson, Khusela Diko, conceded this yesterday on inquiries by the Sunday Times, after leading experts questioned why Covid-19 modelling data is being kept under wraps.

The move to keep the data out of the public eye comes after an earlier model on which the strict lockdown was based was heavily criticised.

It projected thousands more infections and deaths than SA has experienced to date. As at Friday, 9,420 people in SA have been infected with Covid-19, and 186 have died.

“We don’t want to put these models out to the public as if they are the gospel truth,” Diko said.

“There is an element where we want to avoid panic in communities, and we’re also mindful of the stigma of the virus.”

She conceded that “we need to allow people to feel more in control. That is perhaps something that is not being done as well as we could, because when people are armed with information, they feel like they are taking charge of their lives rather than just receiving info from the government.”

Diko said Ramaphosa visited the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research “to view the CSIR system, which can drill down to street level and allow for projections. The CSIR raised that these are fluid, and we don’t want a situation where we put out information when it changes by the minute.”

She added they were working on ways to better communicate with the public.

Experts said the move to limit the flow of scientific data on the pandemic means the government will make its decision on whether to reopen the economy further based on data that South Africans are not privy to.

The data will include epidemiological models drawn up by leading scientists, actuaries and mathematicians tracking how effective the lockdown has been.

Constitutional and medical experts are calling for greater transparency, especially because the rate of easing the lockdown is crucial to the future of an economy that has been brought to its knees.

But those working with the data confirmed to the Sunday Times this week they had been told to keep it confidential.

With infection rates soaring this week and poor people starving because they cannot work, the president and the national command council face decisions that will affect many lives. These are challenges leaders across the world are grappling with, as many countries begin to ease lockdowns in a bid to revive dying economies.

With economic data for April beginning to show the devastating impact of the first full month, Business for SA has urged the government to move quickly to

The government’s “you can move house until June 7” concession will come as a relief for those who’ve been financially compromised by the ban on relocating during lockdown. But the wording is too restrictive, says the removals company which made it happen.

The concession was announced by means of publishing new regulations in the government gazette late on Thursday.

Eezi Move, one of SA’s largest independent moving companies, applied to the Pretoria high court on Monday for an urgent interdict forcing the government to allow the removals industry to operate in level 4 of lockdown.

Company representatives began liaising with co-operative governance and traditional affairs (Cogta) department officials on Tuesday and met on Thursday to finalise the concession.

“It’s a huge relief for our company, our workers, the industry and for all those who desperately need to move,” said Eezi Move’s CFO Pieter Townsend.

The wording of the regulation left many key questions unanswered, including “Are removal companies allowed to operate?” which Townsend was happy to confirm is indeed the case.

“We have 1,000 moves lined up, starting tomorrow [Saturday],” he said.

The regulations state that the concession applies to those who have signed a new lease or if their new home was transferred into their name before lockdown.

But many of those desperate to move do not fit into those two categories — does that mean they have to stay put?

No, Townsend says. “We discussed this with Cogta officials. You just need to get documentary proof of why you are moving.

“But our legal team is not happy with the wording of the regulation, so we have not withdrawn our interdict court date of May 12.

“The wording of the regulation is too restrictive, and does not reflect the understanding we came to in our meeting.”

That understanding was that all those who had an urgent need to move house could do so until June 7, Townsend said, provided they first fill in the permit — as contained in the published regulation — and obtain written proof of the reason for their move. “So if you are moving out of a flat and in with your parents because you can’t afford the rent, for example, you must get a letter from your landlord and your parents, backing up your story.”

The news was met with delight and relief by Andy* of Claremont — he and wife have spent lockdown working in their two-bedroom open-plan flat with their young children, and desperately want to move to a bigger place.

Jacob*, an unemployed Nelspruit husband and father who was offered a job in the Western Cape but hasn’t been unable to take it up until now because of the government’s ban on relocation, is madly making move plans on Friday [today].

“We celebrated last night,” he told TimesLIVE, “with cups of tea!”

Eezi Move and many other removal companies have had their clients’ possessions in storage since late March when the country went into lockdown, unable to deliver them.

“It goes without saying that not having the most basic of household items at your disposal because it can’t be delivered causes unimaginable hardship,” the company told TimesLIVE when applying for the urgent interdict. “Many of our customers have reached out to us and shared the difficulties they face, from having to sleep on the floor and not being able to take occupation of their new homes, to not even having access to their winter clothing.”

Certain requirements have to be met before embarking on a move. These are:

• Obtain a permit to travel across provincial, metropolitan or district boundaries from the station commander of a police station or a person designated by him or her. The permit is Form 1 of the gazetted directions, available here.
• It must indicate the people who are part of the household who will be required to move.
• You must have in your possession the relevant lease agreement indicating the date of expiry of the old lease and the date of commencement of the new lease.
• The transfer documents attesting to the change in place of residence or change of ownership of property, or other documents substantiating your reason for relocation, such as confirmation of a job offer.
• A letter from your landlord stating that you can no longer afford the rent.
• A confirmatory letter from the person owning the property into which you will be moving.

The lockdown will lead to 29 times more lives lost than the harm it seeks to prevent from Covid-19 in SA, according to a conservative estimate contained in a new model developed by local actuaries.

The model, which will be made public today for debate, was developed by a consortium calling themselves Panda (Pandemic ~ Data Analysis), which includes four actuaries, an economist and a doctor, while the work was checked by lawyers and mathematicians. The process was led by two fellows at the actuarial society of SA, Peter Castleden and Nick Hudson.

The group have sent a letter, explaining their model, to President Cyril Ramaphosa, entitled ‘lockdown is a humanitarian disaster to dwarf Covid-19”. In the letter, they call for an end to the lockdown, a focus on isolating the elderly and allowing children to go back to school, while ensuring the economy restarts so lives can be saved.

“Had the prospect that coronavirus could kill tens of millions of people been increasingly confirmed, lockdowns may have been justified. That possibility no longer exists. It now seems unlikely that more than a 1-million will die worldwide. The humanitarian crisis provoked by lockdown, however, is a matter of sheer certainty,” they say.

Castleden and Hudson stress that this shouldn’t be seen as a willingness to swap the lives of the elderly for ending the lockdown. It’s an accusation, they say, which is desperately naive. “The effects of poverty in terms of death and sickness are well known — so well that they are even modelled by insurance companies when they set their premiums … hunger causes long-term illnesses, retards development and condemns children to lives of misery and dependence,” they say.

Rather, they say their model aims to use science and data to help political leaders make choices that will lead to the least harm for the country. It notes that deaths from poverty are slow, out of the public eye and easier to ignore.

Either way, it’s an important contribution to the debate about SA’s response to the virus, since the government has not publicly released models of either projected Covid-19 deaths or the economic implications of the lockdown.

‘Years of life lost’

The actuaries used a model comparing “years of lives lost” from Covid-19, to “years of lives lost” from the lockdown. Panda’s analysis says “the impact of the virus on the vast majority of the population, particularly the economically active and school children, has been massively overstated”.

Since SA’s Covid-19 data is so sparse, Castleden and Hudson used New York’s public extensive data, overlaying the percentage of people who died in each age range onto a model of SA’s population. This allowed them to establish what percentage of 40-year-olds, and what percentage of 80-year-olds, would die. For example, if a female dies at age 40 of Covid-19, and typically only very sick young people die, they work out she would have lived another 17.7 years but for the virus. A death of an 80-year-old equals fewer years lost.

In SA, they estimate that 5,4-years of life have been lost per Covid-19 death. They then multiply this by the range of deaths which they predict, 20,000, as well as the Actuarial Society’s prediction of 88,000 fatalities. They factor in that the lockdown will have reduced some deaths, but not all. In the end, their model translated into a minimum of 26,800 “years of lives lost” due to Covid-19, and a maximum of 473,500 years. (This, critically, shouldn’t be confused with the actual number of fatalities expected from Covid-19.)

The actuaries then used the figures predicted by national Treasury to model the impact on poverty. On Friday, Treasury estimated that between 3-million and 7-million jobs will be lost due to the measures taken to combat the virus. The actuaries then work out that, conservatively, 10% of South Africans will become poorer, and as a result, will lose a few months of their lives.

In the end, their model showed that the number of years lost owing to the economic contraction caused by lock down lies between 14m and 24m years. They say they erred on the side of caution: had they used a lower estimate of Covid-19 deaths and greater estimate of job losses, the result would be a figure far higher than the 29 times calculation they reached.

“We should wear masks, we should cocoon our old and infirm, and we should be cautious in our interactions. We should not incarcerate the masses in their homes, limiting their hard-earned freedoms and decimating the economic system that furnishes their livelihoods. We should be doing everything we possibly can to allow businesses to operate,” they say.

Panda’s model highights that based on all public European data, 90% of Covid-19 deaths were in people 70 or older with one or more disease, while the relative risk to the young and healthy is negligible. The actuaries then used a second actuarial model, called the Preston Curve, to check their initial calculations and ensure they match up.

Actuaries typically spend their time working out models for how long people will live, to ensure life insurance premiums can be properly calculated. If they get it wrong and people die sooner than expected, premiums will be too low, payouts will be made sooner than expected and insurance companies will go bankrupt. But actuaries also try to model what risk factors can shorten life expectancy, and the impact of wealth and health measures.

Article by Financial Mail

As many as 7-million South Africans could join the ranks of the jobless if large swathes of the economy remain shut until the end of the year, with more than 2.5-million jobs at risk even if the pandemic is contained quickly and the economy bounces back.

The Treasury presented the bleak scenarios on the impact of Covid-19 on Thursday, in a briefing in which it outlined the government’s approach to rebooting the economy and detailed its R500bn stimulus package.

About one-fifth of the money is earmarked for the creation and protection of jobs. Finance minister Tito Mboweni is expected to discuss this when he tables a special adjustment budget within a couple of months.

The Treasury’s grim forecast draws on a study by researchers at Southern Africa – Towards Inclusive Economic Development (SA-Tied), a collaboration between the government and local and international bodies including the UN.

The researchers project that even a “quick” recovery would see the economy contract 5%, “an economic outcome that would have been considered catastrophically bad a little more than one month ago”.

But the outcome would be even worse in a “slow” scenario of prolonged disruption to the economy, which could shrink 16% this year.

Jobs in construction and manufacturing will be hard hit, and the trade and accommodation sector, which includes restaurants and hotels, could see more than 1-million job losses in a worst-case scenario.

A study by PwC last month projected that SA’s unemployment rate – which is already one of the world’s worst at 29% – could jump to nearly 48% in a worst-case scenario in which the economy crashed, while even a milder scenario could push it to 33%.

In the last quarter of 2019, the workforce totalled 16.4-million, with 6.7-million people jobless.

Household incomes will fall dramatically, the SA-Tied study found, particularly in the middle-income bracket that does not qualify for social grants.

Across the economy, the lockdown could see total wages and salaries shrink as much as 30%, but company profits will be slashed by even more than that.

Mboweni confirmed again this week that SA was approaching the International Monetary Fund and other lenders in the hope of borrowing a total of R95bn this year to support businesses and protect jobs.

South Africa’s National Treasury expects job losses, tax losses and a contracting economy due to the coronavirus pandemic and the lockdown to halt its spread.

The finance minister will only present an adjustment budget, which accounts for the impact of the pandemic and economic relief measures, in June or July, according to Treasury and tax officials who briefed lawmakers on the potential impact of the virus on Thursday.

South Africa’s economy could contract by as much as 16.1% this year, depending on how long it takes to contain the coronavirus pandemic and for the economy to recover to the end of 2020, Treasury estimates showed.

“We have to move quickly to get the economy back to normal, but also take into account that we have to contain the impact of the virus,” Dondo Mogajane, the National Treasury’s director-general, said.

Treasury’s scenarios showed that more than 7 million jobs could be shed as a result of the virus and lockdown that has brought almost all economic activity to a standstill. Manufacturing, construction, trade, catering and accommodation, as well as financial and business services will be the worst-affected sectors.

The Treasury expected a “substantial” shortfall in revenue from the 1.43 trillion tax-collection estimate in the February 26 budget. That’s due to weakness in the economy and virus-related tax relief measures, the Treasury said.

While the forecasts still need to be updated, the tax take could fall by 32% or more, according to Finance Minister Tito Mboweni.

A ban on the sale of alcohol and tobacco products during the lockdown has already led to an under-recovery of more than 1.5 billion rand last month alone, said Edward Kieswetter, the commissioner of the South African Revenue Service.

The country is counting on accessing $5.07 billion from multilateral lenders and development banks including the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and New Development Bank to help finance the government’s stimulus package.

The tenor for some of these loans would be as long as 35 years, which includes a grace period and no conditionality post-disbursement, according to the Treasury. The cost of funding the loans is favorable relative to market pricing because they are not based on country-risk premium, the Treasury said.

The Treasury’s presentation followed a credit rating downgrade by S&P Global Ratings, which took South Africa’s debt assessments to lowest levels yet.

The downgrade is “big blow to the country” and underlined the need for structural reforms, Mboweni said.

Article by News 24