All is not well’: KZN premier promises ‘intensified’ lockdown in Durban
By: illovuonline news team
19-04-2020
Image: Sihle Zikalala/Twitter
There will be “no compromises” in the enforcement of the national lockdown in Durban, as the coastal city has become KwaZulu-Natal’s Covid-19 epicentre.
This was the stern warning from premier Sihle Zikalala on Sunday.
“We want to inform you that all is not well,” said Zikalala. “We need to take urgent and drastic action because we are at risk of losing this battle if we behave as if all is normal.”
Currently, KwaZulu-Natal is the third worst-hit province in SA in terms of the number of Covid-19 cases, behind only Gauteng and the Western Cape. However, 40% of the country’s deaths from the respiratory illness have been in the province — 21 of the 52 fatalities.
Zikalala said, KwaZulu-Natal also accounts for 83 of the patients admitted in both private and public health care facilities, which is 15% of the national total. Sixty-one of them are in private hospitals, according to the figures he provided, and three are in intensive care.
But, said Zikalala, eThekwini was overwhelmingly the provinces’s epicentre, with 65% of all cases in KwaZulu-Natal being from the Durban-based metro.
This, said the premier, meant that strict measures had to be put in place to curb the spread of the coronavirus, which causes the Covid-19 illness.
“It has become crystal clear that eThekwini has become the epicentre of Covid-19 in KwaZulu-Natal. Although this may be explained by the fact that eThekwini is a metro, and has the highest concentration of the population of KwaZulu-Natal, these figures are nevertheless extremely worrying.
“This new emerging trend is indicative of the fact that too many people and some institutions are not adhering to the lockdown regulations. This kind of behaviour must stop,” he said.
As a result, “urgent and decisive action” was needed.
“Such action needs to be taken now and by all of us.
“It is for these reasons that we have decided … to implement an intensified lockdown for eThekwini. We have issued a directive to our law enforcement authorities to apply the law in its strictest form, and make sure that there are no compromises. We want them to make sure that the violation of the lockdown by people who are supposed to be at home is met with the concomitant punishment as set out by the law,” he said.
This meant more police officers’ and soldiers’ boots on the ground. Increased roadblocks were also promised.
“We wish to once again plead with our people to stay at home, and respect the law. This is a health emergency. We are in disaster mode. It is not business as usual,” said Zikalala.
Other intervention measures included:
Sweeping door-to-door screening;
Removal of infectious sources to specified isolation sites;
Set-up testing and screening booths in areas of major movements (malls, transport routes/taxi ranks);
Adjustment and intensification of community containment interventions; and
Informal settlements sanitisation programme.
Meanwhile, the DA in eThekwini has submitted a proposal to city leaders on the current situation — saying that major budgetary changes were needed in combination with assistance for those hardest hit.
“The municipality is going to have to take some tough and decisive action to reallocate funding to ensure that it has the capacity to respond and protect its citizens during this pandemic.
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KZN informal traders and small businesses to get help with Covid-19 relief applications
By: illovuonline news team
19-04-2020
Image: online
The KZN department of economic development, tourism & environmental affairs and its public entity Trade and Investment KwaZulu-Natal (TIKZN) have offered to help SMMEs and informal traders to apply for Covid-19 relief funds.
The KZN department of economic development, tourism & environmental affairs and its public entity Trade and Investment KwaZulu-Natal (TIKZN) have offered to help SMMEs and informal traders to apply for Covid-19 relief funds.
The KwaZulu-Natal government and public entity Trade and Investment KwaZulu-Natal (TIKZN) will help informal traders and small businesses to apply for Covid-19 relief funding.
“The KwaZulu-Natal provincial department of Economic Development Tourism and Environmental Affairs (EDTEA) and its public entity TIKZN wish to express their support for all businesses and SMMEs who have been negatively affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The national government has set up funds to support various categories of businesses from informal traders, to SMMEs and co-operatives to cope with the financial circumstances they find themselves in.
“EDTEA, through the investSA KwaZulu-Natal One Stop Shop administered by TIKZN, will be assisting businesses in packaging of applications to the various relief funding schemes offered by the national government departments. The One Stop Shop has been designated to be the central point of co-ordination for KwaZulu-Natal business,” TIKZN said on Thursday.
The Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the KwaZulu-Natal Business Chambers Council, through their private sector network, are also helping with other services such as IT, legal, marketing and access to financial support. These services will be done on a pro bono basis.
TIKZN board chairperson Ina Cronjé said that for most businesses near-term survival was the only agenda item, while others are peering through the fog of uncertainty, thinking about how to position themselves once the crisis has passed”.
“The reality is that the new normal will bring a set of new challenges. While no-one can say how long the crisis will last, what we find on the other side will not look like the normal of recent years. We are pleased that through EDTEA, Trade and Investment KwaZulu-Natal has been passed the baton to help in facilitating applications for businesses. Our One Stop Shop facility will be the point of contact for these businesses. Our focus is to make every possible means available to help companies to turn around.”
Overcrowding stops permits being issued to Joburg informal traders
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The department of economic development’s acting head of department, Sihle Mkhize, said the government understood that small players such as co-operatives and traders, which included street traders and hawkers, had been badly affected.
“We undertake not to leave small players behind, as they play a critical role in our economy. This facility will be extended to those in the informal trade, hence EDTEA’s small-business support programme will play a major role.”
TIKZN said the initiative was made possible through the support of the private sector.
Companies such as LNN Capital and others had offered their services pro-bono and come on board to augment the capacity of the One Stop Shop.
“This pandemic has really hit a number of companies hard and it is important that we assist in the creation of a platform aimed at helping businesses apply for relief. We do not guarantee the outcome, as the relief measures have their own requirements and screening processes; however, we are trying to help companies manoeuvre through the paperwork and compliance requirements of these instruments. The business community is urged to take advantage of this offering designed to service their needs at a single stop and under one roof.
“I want to thank the private sector and the chamber movement for coming on board in the spirit of ubuntu by providing their services free to help other businesses survive this crisis” said TIKZN CEO Neville Matjie.
All businesses and SMMEs wishing to use the services of the One-Stop-Shop operating under TIKZN may contact TIKZN during office hours, on 031 368 9602 or e-mail business.support@tikzn.co.za
It might be over for Idols judge Somizi – SABC speaks out after asking him to step aside
By: illovuonline news team
19-04-2020
Image: Somizi/ Instagram
Metro FM presenter and Idols judge Somizi Mhlongo-motaung has survived the SABC’S axe- for now- and is set to return to work tomorrow.
This comes after the reality TV star and professional choreographer was asked to step aside by the SABC pending the outcome of an investigation into his conduct, which was also deemed to be in breach of lockdown regulations on spreading fake news.
Somgaga, as Mhlongo-motaung is known among his fans, had lied that Minister of Transport Fikile Mbalula told him that President Cyril Ramaphosa would extend the lockdown before it was officially announced.
But he later apologised to Mbalula and the nation for his action, claiming that it was all a bad joke.
Mhlongo-motaung, who co-presents The Bridge with Dineo Ranaka and Lerato Kganyago on Mzansi’s biggest commercial radio station, was expected to be axed by Metro FM, according to senior officials.
SABC spokesperson Mmoni Seapolelo said the SABC decided that Mhlongo-motaung should return to work tomorrow. The decision, she said, was taken after he was subjected to the organisation’s internal policies and processes.
“The SABC views the matter concerning Somizi Mhlongo-motaung in a serious light. It is also imperative to note that this matter was referred to the law-enforcement authorities.
As a responsible employee, we will allow the law to take its course and the matter reach its logical conclusion,” said Seapolelo.
Mhlongo-motaung has been absent from the airwaves since the incident, and his woes were also compounded by Mbalula, who opened a case against him at Sandton police station.
Mhlongo-motaung was subsequently arrested and later released on R1 500 bail after he handed himself over to police.
Mhlongo-motaung was likely to face the chop, senior officials had argued that Mbalula’s case had made it difficult to save him.
“Mbalula compounded his problems by opening a case against him. He could only be saved if Mbalula dropped the charges against him, which is highly unlikely because he too was protecting his integrity. Because the way things happened, it created an impression that Mbalula leaked the information to him,” said a deep throat privy to the matter.
The tipster also said they prayed that Mhlongo-motaung would not act emotionally and resign.
“There is hope that he will survive this because, to be honest , listeners love him to bits,” said the source.
The informant said the station had accepted his apology, but said that it was a little too late, as the matter was now out of the SABC’S reach and control.
However, like a cat, Mhlongo-motaung has proven to have nine lives, as he survived the axe for his controversial statements, which also breached the lockdown regulations.
Mhlongo-motaung had not responded to any questions.
We will allow the law to take its cause and the matter reach its logical conclusion.
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SA teacher in China on ‘forced quarantine’ for Africans
By: illovuonline news team
19-04-2020
Image: Source
A South African teacher who lives in Shunde, Foshan, in the Guangdong province of China, says her family lives in constant fear of being subjected to forced quarantine and multiple Covid-19 tests.
The primary school teacher, whose name is known to illovuonline news, lives with her husband, also a middle school teacher.
Jessica* said they returned to Foshan on 16 March from their hometown, George, to resume their duties after being on holiday.
She says, upon their arrival in the province, they were quarantined for two weeks, with cameras installed outside their residence to ensure they did not leave.
After testing for the virus on 25 March, their results returned negative.
They finished their quarantine period on 30 March.
But what came after that was shocking for the 40-year-old.
She said they started noticing strange behaviour towards foreigners.
As if that was not enough, she said on 9 April they then received a call from her school’s HR department instructing the couple to pack their bags and go to the police station, because they were going to be taken to a hotel for quarantine.
When Jessica questioned why they were returning to quarantine after testing negative, she said she was told: “We don’t know. The government said so.”
When they arrived at the hotel, Jessica said they noticed that it was only people from Africa who were there.
“[There was] a guy from Morocco, a lady who’s got dual citizenship with Namibia and South Africa, another lady was from the Eastern Cape.
And we were just like, where are other people? It is only people from Africa.
“Even to this day, there has been no official letter and explanation as to why we had to go in. We packed because they also said if we refuse to come, the police would come to our house and arrest us and take us there,” Jessica said.
Her two friends from Pretoria who arrived on 4 and 5 March were also subjected to the treatment.
She said that, while on the way to the hotel, they then heard for the first time that Africans were being subjected to forced testing, random isolation and evictions in Guangzhou, which is about a two-hour drive from their province.
“We went into the hotel and got tested again for the virus, and two days ago we got tested again. So we have been tested three times now for the virus. Every time the results are negative and they told us yesterday that we could leave. We are at home right now in self-isolation.”
Chinese Consul General to South Africa Tang Zhongdong has denied allegations that Africans in China were mistreated.
He was speaking at a handover ceremony with Gauteng Health MEC Bandile Masuku on Tuesday, where 30 000 units of personal protective equipment (PPE) were donated.
He was responding to the widespread media coverage of what was happening to Africans in China.
But Jessica said the denial was far from the truth, based on the her first-hand experience along with her African friends who are teaching in the country.
She said there was continued “blatant discrimination” against them.
“You will see mothers literally taking their kids out of the way, people not wanting to get into the lifts and some foreigners who go to gym, they are told they need to show their papers showing they quarantined,” she said.
Jessica claims that the treatment people from Africa are receiving is not the same as for foreigners from the UK and USA, who have been left in isolation and not forced to test.
“We have colleagues and friends from US who have not even been quarantined. They [are] only isolated. They were never tested. My colleague from England never tested and when we ask why this is happening, we are told it’s because of the many black people in Guanzhong who have got the virus. It’s shocking how racist people are. The stuff they say.”
“It’s just the unfairness and blatant discrimination. Just because we’re from Africa, we have to go through this over and over again, but nothing is happening to the people from UK and USA.”
Regardless of the current uncertainty, Jessica said she is lucky to at least have her husband with her, but is worried about her friends who are single – and have to be alone when asked to quarantine.
She said, although the situation in their province was not as bad as getting evicted, they were still stressed.
She added that they had to get tested again next week, which would make it their fourth test.
It is very difficult to be in self-isolation, especially alone in the country, because there are no gardens where they live, she adds.
“My friends are single and are in seclusion. It’s hard for them because it’s not like in SA where there are gardens for them. We live in apartment buildings. We are on 18th and 20th floors and that in itself makes us anxious.”
The teacher said they were now starting to regret their decision to return to China, but that they had been told that their jobs were on the line if they did not come back.
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News put South Africa first
Number of confirmed cases [COVID-19 SA update] rises to 3 034 with 351 new cases.
*Current Status of Cases of COVID-19 in South Africa*
By: illovuonline news team
19-04-2020
Image: DOH
Total cases: 3 034
251 New cases
903 Full recoveries (Confirmed Negative)
52 Deaths
The breakdown per province of total infections is as follows:
GAUTENG 1101
WESTERN CAPE 836
KWAZULU – NATAL 604
EASTERN CAPE 270
FREE STATE 100
LIMPOPO 26
MPUMALANGA 25
NORTH WEST 24
NORTHERN CAPE 16
UNALLOCATED 32
As things are in South Africa. The number of confirmed cases is rising and questions are up as the lockdown was extended. What will happen on end of April.
We convey our condolence to the families and also appreciate the committed health workers who were treating these patients.”
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Nasty C opens up about ‘disappointing’ DJ Speedsta twar: It’s jealousy
By: illovuonline news team
19-04-2020
Image: Nasty C/Instagram
Nasty C said ‘sudden beef’ with people he thought were on his side was to be expected as he continues to blow up.
While Nasty C continues to dominate Mzansi and the world with his hits, the rapper believes that not everyone will be celebrating his success.
Earlier this week, DJ Speedsta and Nasty C got into a heated exchange of words on Twitter after Nasty called Speedsta out for allegedly “lying” about ownership of the song Bamm Bamm.
Nasty C shared his disappointment over how the whole thing went down. The rapper said he believed Speedsta’s Twitter rant stemmed from “jealousy” over his success.
Nasty added that even though he was expecting such behaviour from other people in the industry, he couldn’t have foreseen that Speedsta would lead the charge.
“I think it’s more of a jealousy thing more than anything. I don’t see how his [Speedsta’s] initial point has to do with any of the stuff he went on to say. His first thing was that he gave me a song, which I tried to correct him on because he didn’t. Then he only apologised for his mistake 10 tweets down the line … like only then he admits that there might have been a problem with his wording in the first tweet. Something he should have said in the first place instead of going on and on.
“He instead wanted to talk about how I’ve changed and how I think I’ve arrived now because of (the Def Jam deal) and what not. You could tell the whole thing stemmed from something else. But, it’s okay. I was expecting that anyway – maybe not from him – but it’s cool, it’s whatever,” the rapper said.
There was no coming back when the pair started taking shots at each other and while some tweets have been deleted (mostly from Speedsta’s account) the spicy twar got real dirty at some point.
Adamant that the song in question was his, Speedsta went on to counter every attempt from Nasty to try to prove otherwise. He even went on to tag Def Jam and “leaked” another collaboration that they had done. The song is called Side Chick and features Aewon Wolf.
It was clear that there was irreparable damage done to their relationship when Nasty declined an interview with Speedsta.
Lastly
Nasty said he’s “over the whole thing now”, however it seems highly unlikely that the relationship the pair had will be fully restored.
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Why We Don’t Know the True Death Rate for Covid-19
By: illovuonline news team
19-04-2020
Image: online
Determining what percentage of those infected by the coronavirus will die is a key question for epidemiologists, but an elusive one during the pandemic.
A funeral director at a hospital in Brooklyn last week. Refrigerated trucks served as makeshift morgues to accommodate the number of people dying of the coronavirus.
Coroners in some parts of the country are overwhelmed. Funeral homes in coronavirus hot spots can barely keep up. Newspaper obituary pages in hard-hit areas go on and on. Covid-19 is on track to kill far more people in the United States this year than the seasonal flu.
But determining just how deadly the new coronavirus will be is a key question facing epidemiologists, who expect resurgent waves of infection that could last into 2022.
As the virus spread across the world in late February and March, the projection circulated by infectious disease experts of how many infected people would die seemed plenty dire: around 1 percent, or 10 times the rate of a typical flu.
REOPENING RETAIL
In nearly every part of the country, shops deemed “nonessential” by state and local officials have closed during the pandemic. A Nebraska shopping mall offers a controversial plan to reopen.
But according to various unofficial Covid-19 trackers that calculate the death rate by dividing total deaths by the number of known cases, about 6.4 percent of people infected with the virus have now died worldwide.
In Italy, the death rate stands at about 13 percent, and in the United States, around 4.3 percent, according to the latest figures on known cases and deaths. Even in South Korea, where widespread testing helped contain the outbreak, 2 percent of people who tested positive for the virus have died, recent data shows.
These supposed death rates also appear to vary widely by geography: Germany’s fatality rate appears to be roughly one-tenth of Italy’s, and Los Angeles’s about half of New York’s. Among U.S. states, Michigan, at around 7 percent, is at the high end, while Wyoming, which reported its first two deaths this week, has one of the lowest death rates, at about 0.7 percent.
Virology experts say there is no evidence that any strain of the virus, officially known as SARS-CoV-2, has mutated to become more severe in some parts of the world than others, raising the question of why there appears to be so much variance from country to country.
Coffins were transported in Italy, where 12.8 percent of people with confirmed infections have died.
Determining death rates is especially challenging in the midst of a pandemic, while figures are necessarily fluid. Fatality rates based on comparing deaths, which are relatively easy to count, to infections, which are not, almost certainly overestimate the true lethality of the virus, epidemiologists say. Health officials and epidemiologists have estimated there are five to 10 people with undetected infections for every confirmed case in some communities, and at least one estimate suggests there are far more.
On top of that, deaths lag infections. The thousands of people with Covid-19 who died this week in the United States were most likely infected as far back as a month ago. So as the number of new cases reported begins to fall in hard-hit places like New York City, the death rate will almost certainly rise.
“To know the fatality rate you need to know how many people are infected and how many people died from the disease,” said Ali H. Mokdad, a professor of health metrics sciences at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. “We know how many people are dying, but we don’t know how many people are infected.”
In fact, even the number of people dying is a moving target. Covid-19 deaths that happen at home appear to be widely underreported. And New York City increased its death count by more than 3,700 on Tuesday, after officials said they were now including people who had never tested positive for the virus but were presumed to have died of it.
But the missing data on deaths in the deaths-to-infections ratio is still almost certain to be dwarfed by the expected increase in the denominator when the total number of infections is better understood, epidemiologists say. The statistic typically cited by mayors and governors at Covid-19 news conferences relies on a data set that includes mostly people whose symptoms were severe enough to be tested.
Epidemiologists call it “severity bias.” It is why the fatality rate in Wuhan, China, where the outbreak began, was reported to be between 2 percent and 3.4 percent before it was revised to 1.4 percent, and it may yet be lower.
One intriguing case study for epidemiologists looking for the true fatality rate is the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which became a kind of natural experiment when nearly all of its 3,711 passengers and crew members were tested for the coronavirus after an outbreak on board.
The ship’s “case fatality rate,” which included only those who showed symptoms, was 2.6 percent, according to a study by researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, while the “infection fatality rate,” which included those who tested positive yet remained asymptomatic, was 1.3 percent. (A cruise ship, in which people are in a confined space, is not representative of the more dynamic situation in cities). The known number of coronavirus cases worldwide is about two million, and at least 127,000 of those patients have died. The United States has an estimated 600,000 reported cases and more than 25,000 deaths, the most in the world. But many people infected with the virus have no symptoms, or only mild ones, and appear in no official tally.
Morgue trailers being assembled in New York City in early April. Deaths lag infections, so as the number of new cases reported begins to fall in hard-hit places like New York City, the death rate will almost certainly rise.
Facing a shortage of tests to confirm who has the disease and who does not, and fearing a shortage of I.C.U. beds, hospitals in some areas of the United States have declined to test or admit people whose oxygen saturation is above 90 percent.
Whether a particular locale tests people with even mild symptoms is a key factor in determining how many people were infected, but testing capacity has been limited in many places.
“People with mild symptoms, I just send them home,” said Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, and a critical care physician in Pittsburgh. “All of this is creating disparities in case-fatality ratios that don’t reflect real differences.”
Even with testing now becoming more widely available for Americans with Covid-19 symptoms, the proportion of people infected by the virus who do not feel appreciably sick is unknown, including in places with some of the highest deaths per 100,000 people: New York (55), Spain (40), Belgium (36), Italy (35), New Jersey (32), France (23) and Louisiana (22).
A clue comes from Iceland, which has tested 6 percent of its population, perhaps the highest proportion of any country. Of those who tested positive, 43 percent had no symptoms at the time, though it is likely that many developed them later.
What scientists call the infection fatality rate is so closely watched because even a seemingly trivial decrease — from, say, 1.0 percent to 0.9 percent — could mean a few hundred thousand fewer deaths in a population the size of the United States. It is also used to calibrate interventions aimed at preventing more deaths with their grim economic consequences.
Over the coming months, tests that can identify antibodies in the blood of people who were unwittingly exposed to the virus will allow for a closer approximation of total infections in different populations.
Both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health recently announced that they would begin using antibody tests to see what proportion of the U.S. population has already been infected. Covid-19 may prove to be less lethal than initial predictions, with an infection fatality rate of under 1 percent, as suggested in an editorialpublished in the New England Journal of Medicine by Dr. Anthony S. Fauci and Dr. H. Clifford Lane, both of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Dr. Robert R. Redfield, director of the C.D.C.
But the public should not take a false comfort in death-rate statistics that might suddenly seem lower, epidemiologists warn.
The infection fatality rate of seasonal flu strains, which kill tens of thousands of Americans each year, is about 0.1 percent. And as Dr. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease official, told lawmakers in March when he was urging them to take serious mitigation efforts, the coronavirus “is a really serious problem.”
Sandy Brown lost both her son and her husband to the virus in Flint, Mich. The state has the highest death rate in the country, at 6 percent.
The inconsistencies in the number of coronavirus cases and deaths in different parts of the United States, according to a C.D.C. report released this week, depend on numerous factors: when the first cases of the virus arrived in a region; its population density; and the age distribution and prevalence of underlying medical conditions in its population. Also important are the timing and extent of community mitigation measures introduced by a region’s public officials, its diagnostic testing capacity and its public-health reporting practices.
The same factors most likely apply to the jumble of outcomes across the globe. But which ones end up fueling or mitigating a local outbreak, infectious disease experts say, can be hard to tease out.
The disparity between New York, with 55 deaths per 100,000 people, and California, with two, for instance, has been widely attributed to the imposition of earlier stay-at-home orders in California, which already had a work-at-home culture prepared to embrace the restrictions. But what about New York’s role as the business capital of the world, where travelers returning from Europe unwittingly introduced the coronavirus by mid-February? Or its high population density, which the C.D.C. report suggests may significantly accelerate the transmission of a disease spread by droplets of mucus or saliva?
“The comparison of New York to California is a little unfair in a way,” said Dr. Mokdad of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. “Yes, in California, the governor put in the shutdown order faster, we shouldn’t take that away from them. But the deck of cards are stacked more against New York.”
Italy’s large number of cases, which overwhelmed its health care system, may be linked to its having the second-oldest population in the world after Japan; likewise The New York Times has identified more than 7,000 deaths at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities across the United States with coronavirus cases.
And the alarming number of African-Americans across many states being killed by Covid-19, health experts said, is likely to be related to higher rates of health conditions, rooted in longstanding economic and health care inequalities, that make it harder for them to survive the infection.
“The state number is an average that masks disparities by county, or even within a county,” Dr. Mokdad said. “Covid-19 is coming on top of underlying population diversity and disparities in health in the United States, and many communities will suffer from it more than other communities.”
Even as parts of the country edge toward reopening, cases are rising in Florida and other Southern states whose governors delayed closing beaches and dine-in restaurants. And it is the virus’s transmission rate, as much as its infection fatality rate, that is preoccupying public health experts trying to find a way forward.
“Everyone in the whole country is vulnerable to this,” said Andrew Noymer, an associate professor of public health at the University of California, Irvine. “Nobody has pre-immunity. That’s totally unlike flu. So New York had some early cases, it spread like crazy. But why is Des Moines not going to have a Covid epidemic? What’s so special about Springfield, Ill.? Social distancing will end. And people will start getting it again and dying.”
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News put South Africa first
Coronavirus: five months on, what scientists now know about Covid-19
By: illovuonline news team
18-04-2020
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Medical researchers have been studying everything we know about coronavirus. What have they learned – and is it enough to halt the pandemic?
Coronaviruses have been causing problems for humanity for a long time. Several versions are known to trigger common colds and more recently two types have set off outbreaks of deadly illnesses: severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (Mers).
But their impact has been mild compared with the global havoc unleashed by the coronavirus that is causing the Covid-19 pandemic. In only a few months it has triggered lockdowns in dozens of nations and claimed more than 145,000 lives. And the disease continues to spread.
That is an extraordinary achievement for a spiky ball of genetic material coated in fatty chemicals called lipids, and which measures 80 billionths of a metre in diameter. Humanity has been brought low by a very humble assailant.
On the other hand, our knowledge about the Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, is also remarkable. This was an organism unknown to science five months ago. Today it is the subject of study on an unprecedented scale. Vaccines projects proliferate, antiviral drug trials have been launched and new diagnostic tests are appearing.
The questions are therefore straightforward: what have we learned over the past five months and how might that knowledge put an end to this pandemic?
Where did it come from and how did it first infect humans?
The Sars-CoV-2 virus almost certainly originated in bats, which have evolved fierce immune responses to viruses, researchers have discovered. These defences drive viruses to replicate faster so that they can get past bats’ immune defences. In turn, that transforms the bat into a reservoir of rapidly reproducing and highly transmissible viruses. Then when these bat viruses move into other mammals, creatures that lack a fast-response immune system, the viruses quickly spread into their new hosts. Most evidence suggests that Sars-CoV-2 started infecting humans via an intermediary species, such as pangolins.
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“This virus probably jumped from a bat into another animal, and that other animal was probably near a human, maybe in a market,” says virologist Professor Edward Holmes of Sydney University. “And so if that wildlife animal has a virus it’s picked up from a bat and we’re interacting with it, there’s a good chance that the virus will then spread to the person handling the animal. Then that person will go home and spread it to someone else and we have an outbreak.”
As to the transmission of Sars-CoV-2, that occurs when droplets of water containing the virus are expelled by an infected person in a cough or sneeze.
Health officials inspect bats to be confiscated in the wake of a coronavirus outbreak at a live animal market in Solo, Central Java, Indonesia.
How does the virus spread and how does it affect people?
Virus-ridden particles are inhaled by others and come into contact with cells lining the throat and larynx. These cells have large numbers of receptors – known as Ace-2 receptors – on their surfaces. (Cell receptors play a key role in passing chemicals into cells and in triggering signals between cells.) “This virus has a surface protein that is primed to lock on that receptor and slip its RNA into the cell,” says virologist Professor Jonathan Ball of Nottingham University.
Once inside, that RNA inserts itself into the cell’s own replication machinery and makes multiple copies of the virus. These burst out of the cell, and the infection spreads. Antibodies generated by the body’s immune system eventually target the virus and in most cases halt its progress.
“A Covid-19 infection is generally mild, and that really is the secret of the virus’s success,” adds Ball. “Many people don’t even notice they have got an infection and so go around their work, homes and supermarkets infecting others.”
By contrast, Sars – which is also caused by a coronavirus – makes patients much sicker and kills about one in 10 of those infected. In most cases, these patients are hospitalised and that stops them infecting others – by cutting the transmission chain. Milder Covid-19 avoids that issue.
Why does the virus sometimes cause death?
Occasionally, however, the virus can cause severe problems. This happens when it moves down the respiratory tract and infects the lungs, which are even richer in cells with Ace-2 receptors. Many of these cells are destroyed, and lungs become congested with bits of broken cell. In these cases, patients will require treatment in intensive care.
Even worse, in some cases, a person’s immune system goes into overdrive, attracting cells to the lungs in order to attack the virus, resulting in inflammation. This process can run out of control, more immune cells pour in, and the inflammation gets worse. This is known as a cytokine storm. (In Greek, “cyto” means cell and “kino” means movement.) In some cases, this can kill the patient.
Just why cytokine storms occur in some patients but not in the vast majority is unclear. One possibility is that some people have versions of Ace-2 receptors that are slightly more vulnerable to attacks from the coronavirus than are those of most people.
Are we protected for life if we get infected?
Doctors examining patients recovering from a Covid-19 infection are finding fairly high levels of neutralising antibodies in their blood. These antibodies are made by the immune system, and they coat an invading virus at specific points, blocking its ability to break into cells.
“It is clear that immune responses are being mounted against Covid-19 in infected people,” says virologist Mike Skinner of Imperial College London. “And the antibodies created by that response will provide protection against future infections – but we should note that it is unlikely this protection will be for life.”
Instead, most virologists believe that immunity against Covid-19 will last only a year or two. “That is in line with other coronaviruses that infect humans,” says Skinner. “That means that even if most people do eventually become exposed to the virus, it is still likely to become endemic – which means we would see seasonal peaks of infection of this disease. We will have reached a steady state with regard to Covid-19.”
The virus will be with us for some time, in short. But could it change its virulence? Some researchers have suggested that it could become less deadly. Others have argued that it could mutate to become more lethal. Skinner is doubtful. “We have got to consider this pandemic from the virus’s position,” he says. “It is spreading round the world very nicely. It is doing OK. Change brings it no benefit.”
In the end, it will be the development and roll-out of an effective vaccine that will free us from the threat of Covid-19, Skinner says.
When will we get a vaccine?
Last Friday, the journal Nature reported that 78 vaccine projects had been launched round the globe – with a further 37 in development. Among the projects that are under way is a vaccine programme that is now in phase-one trials at Oxford University, two others at US biotechnology corporations and three more at Chinese scientific groups. Many other vaccine developers say they plan to start human testing this year.
Around the globe, there are 78 vaccine projects.
This remarkable response raises hopes that a Covid-19 vaccine could be developed in a fairly short time. However, vaccines require large-scale safety and efficacy studies. Thousands of people would receive either the vaccine itself or a placebo to determine if the former were effective at preventing infection from the virus which they would have encountered naturally. That, inevitably, is a lengthy process.
As a result, some scientists have proposed a way to speed up the process – by deliberately exposing volunteers to the virus to determine a vaccine’s efficacy. “This approach is not without risks but has the potential to expedite candidate vaccine testing by many months,” says Nir Eyal, a professor of bioethics at Rutgers University.
Volunteers would have to be young and healthy, he stresses: “Their health would also be closely monitored, and they would have access to intensive care and any available medicines.” The result could be a vaccine that would save millions of lives by being ready for use in a much shorter time than one that went through standard phase three trials.
But deliberately infecting people – in particular volunteers who would be given a placebo vaccine as part of the trial – is controversial. “This will have to be thought through very carefully,” says Professor Adam Finn of Bristol University. “Young people might jump at the opportunity to join such a trial but this is a virus that does kill the odd young person. We don’t know why yet. However, phase-three trials are still some way off, so we have time to consider the idea carefully.”
• This article was amended on 12 April 2020. The original version incorrectly described the Covid-19 virus as measuring “an 80-billionth of a metre”, when it should have said “80 billionths of a metre”. A quote from Mike Skinner, responding to whether Covid-19’s virulence could change, was also corrected.
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By: illovuonline news team
18-04-2020
Image: Rescue Care
A flat was on fire in Cato Road in the Berea area on Thursday afternoon.
Durban firefighters were battling a blaze in a block of flats in the Berea area on Thursday afternoon.
Rescue Care paramedic Garrith Jamieson said the flat was in Cato Road.
“At this stage it is unknown what caused the flat to catch alight, however the fire department is in attendance with multiple vehicles battling the blaze. Minor injuries have been sustained and the patients are being treated by paramedics on the scene,” he said.
More updates would follow, regarding the cause of fire.
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