COVID-19 pandemic - The African Mirror

Oct

18

2020

Divided world is failing COVID-19 test, says frustrated

SERGIO GONCALVES A divided world has failed to rise to the challenge of fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said and warned concerted action was needed to prevent millions of people being pushed into poverty and hunger. The former Portuguese prime minister said far more could have been done if countries had worked together to combat the disease, which has killed more than one million people. "The COVID-19 pandemic is a major global challenge for the entire international community, for multilateralism and for me, as secretary-general of the United Nations," Guterres told Portuguese news agency Lusa. "Unfortunately…

Oct

15

2020

By The African Mirror

Post-pandemic, will offices and factories become ‘places men go’?

AFRICITIES

ELLEN WULFHORST OFFICE life will be different after COVID-19, with desks far apart, Plexiglass barriers and a health warning on handshakes. But the biggest change could be a notable absence of women. Once the pandemic eases sufficiently for workers to return to their desks and factory floors, women are more likely to continue working from home because they shoulder the bulk of domestic responsibilities, experts said. "There is a danger there that women are the ones who are likely to opt to work from home, and offices may just end up being the places where men go to," said Phumzile…

Oct

10

2020

By The African Mirror

The future of urban housing after COVID-19

AFRICITIES

LUIS TRIVENO and OLIVIA NIELSEN THE COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted housing inequities and put the global housing crisis back on the radar. With a spotlight on housing’s role in public health – particularly in urban areas – predictions abound in the media about the future of housing and cities. Yet, these predictions are usually written by financially secure individuals and tend to ignore the plight of the world’s poor, for whom housing progress has been notoriously slow. In the COVID era, it’s time to look at housing from a different angle so we can help shape a better future for all.…

Oct

08

2020

By The African Mirror

Congo to receive $142 million COVID-19 support

COVID-19

THE African Development Bank has approved $100 million of grants and a $42 million loan to the Democratic Republic of Congo to support its budget and help it to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, the country's finance minister has announced. The coronavirus has hit Congo's domestic revenue just as increased spending has applied significant pressure on foreign exchange reserves. - Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Sep

30

2020

By The African Mirror

Nigerian scientists have identified seven lineages of SARS-CoV-2: why it matters

SCIENCE, TECH AND INNOVATION

CHRISTIAN HAPPI, Professor of Molecular Biology and Genomics, Redeemer's University BY the first week of August 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic had caused about 654,000 deaths worldwide. In Nigeria, as of July 28, there were 38,945 confirmed cases recorded with 813 deaths. The pandemic hit the African continent last, and the numbers remain comparatively low for most countries. But there is a strong view among scientists that data recorded on the continent are an underestimate as countries struggle with testing. As frantic work continues to find a vaccine, countries like Nigeria continue to do all they can to curb the spread…

Sep

03

2020

By The African Mirror

Bad weather, COVID-19 leave over 2.6 mln Malawians short of food

COVID-19

MALAWI says that weather-related hazards coupled with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic would leave 15% of the population in need of food aid this season. The Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee, a grouping of government, food experts and aid agencies, found that over 2.6 million people in the southern African country of 17.7 million would not be able to meet their food requirements during the 2020/21 consumption season. Impoverished Malawi is periodically hit by food shortages as it relies heavily on rain-fed agriculture and most of its maize is grown on small plots by subsistence farmers. Winford Masanjala, secretary for…

Sep

01

2020

By The African Mirror

Kenya central bank to rule on 2020 dividend issuance by banks

BUSINESS

KENYA'S central bank will have to approve any plans by commercial lenders to issue dividends for this year it said in a memo to bank executives, an unusual move caused by the coronavirus crisis. Lenders in the East African nation have seen their earnings plunge in the first half of this year, hit by higher provisions for bad loans, on the back of the COVID-19 pandemic. They have also had to restructure more than a quarter of total customer loans, to provide relief to individuals and firms hit by the disruptions. All lenders are required to resubmit their internal capital…

Sep

01

2020

By The African Mirror

COVID-19 can wipe out health care progress in short order – WHO

COVID-19

EMMA FARGE MORE than 90% of countries have seen ordinary health services disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, with major gains in medical care attained over decades vulnerable to being wiped out in a short period, a World Health Organization survey showed. The Geneva-based body has frequently warned about other life-saving programmes being impacted by the pandemic and has sent countries mitigation advice, but the survey yielded the first WHO data so far on the scale of disruptions. “The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on essential health services is a source of great concern,” said a report on the study released…

Aug

29

2020

By The African Mirror

Western diplomats express deep concern over Zimbabwe crisis

NEWS

MACDONALD DZIRUTWE WESTERN diplomats in Zimbabwe have expressed deep concern over a deteriorating political and economic crisis, and said the government should stop using the COVID-19 pandemic to curtail freedoms. Zimbabwe is suffering inflation over 800%, which has revived memories of the hyperinflation more than a decade ago during Robert Mugabe's rule. Nurses are on strike and a series of arrests of political opponents have raised the alarm about a crackdown on dissent. Heads of mission from the United States, Britain, Germany, Canada, Netherlands, Norway and Poland said in a statement that President Emmerson Mnangagwa's initial promises of uniting the…

Aug

25

2020

By The African Mirror

‘I could have suffocated’: Peru’s pandemic tensions burst with nightclub tragedy

WORLD

MARCO AQUINO PERU, battling one of the world's worst coronavirus outbreaks and a five-month lockdown, was reeling on Monday after the deaths of 13 people, most of them young women, in a stampede at an illegal nightclub triggered by a police raid. The tragedy at the club, which authorities called "a breeding ground" for COVID-19, has exposed tensions in the Andean nation of 33 million people that has one of the world's worst per capita fatality rates with almost 28,000 deaths. Infections are rising again in a dangerous second wave and total almost 600,000, the sixth highest in the world.…