COVID-19 - The African Mirror

May

05

2023

By YOGAN PILLAY, FLAVIA SENKUBUGE, LUCY GILSON, SAIENDHRA MOODLEY and SUZI MALAN

Health workers cope with a huge amount of stress – how to build a resilient health system in South Africa

POPULAR and academic literature is replete with examples of how to cope with daily stresses. Mental health professions have also long researched and implemented strategies to deal with burnout from workplace stressors. Coping with stress is not a new phenomenon. But COVID-19 and the responses to the pandemic have increased our attention on how people and systems cope with stress-inducing shocks. This should not surprise us given the impact of COVID-19 on almost every aspect of our lives. There are indications that many people and countries are still struggling to emerge from its shadow. Resilience is a relatively new area…

Mar

17

2021

By The African Mirror

Will COVID-19 inspire young women to become social entrepreneurs?

COVID-19

MICHAEL TAYLOR THEY have been called a lost generation - fledgling careers, studies and social lives upturned by the chaos wrought by COVID-19. But as the pandemic exposes long-standing social problems, and creates new ones, some young people have seized the opportunity to apply business-minded solutions. The Thomson Reuters Foundation asked three young, female social entrepreneurs to reflect on their experiences over the last year and what advice they can give to other youths hoping to set up socially conscious businesses. We spoke to Harsha Ravindran, 18, co-founder of Ascendance, a Malaysia-based social enterprise and youth movement that connects and empowers students…

Jan

05

2021

By The African Mirror

eSwatini aims to vaccinate entire population against COVID-19

COVID-19

eSWATINI aims to vaccinate all its 1.3 million people against COVID-19 and will set aside at least 200 million emalangeni ($14 million) to do so, senior officials in the southern African kingdom has said. eSwatini, formerly known as Swaziland, is participating in the COVAX global vaccine distribution scheme co-led by the World Health Organization and hopes to receive enough vaccines for 20% of its population via the facility free of charge. It wants to buy vaccines for the remaining 80% via COVAX but recognises it may have to source doses elsewhere. "We are still trying to explore other sources for…

Jan

05

2021

By The African Mirror

The inspirational life of Dr Emmanuel Taban

NEWS

AFRICAN MIRROR REPORTER A Sudanese man who fled wars and walked over 6000 km to South Africa where he has become a leading pulmonologist has become a social media sensation. Dr Emmanuel Taban has also become a poster boy on how refugees can contribute positively to countries across Africa. Taban’s extraordinary was featured in special TV programme Carte Blanche in South Africa and he is now being celebrated across social media. Taban was born in a tiny village in South Sudan and he and four siblings were raised by a single mother. At the age of 14, he was arrested…

Jan

03

2021

By The African Mirror

A Covid-19 rethink for 2021: Relief, prevention, treatment and vaccines all need a new approach!

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

ZWELINZIMA VAVI THERE are several areas where, during 2020, South African ruling class efforts to reign in the deadly Covid-19 virus will be considered by workers very critically, indeed as outright failures: relief, prevention, treatment and vaccines. But 2021 need not suffer the same mistakes, if basic decency replaces our government’s neoliberal policies, austerity programmes and the Health and Trade Ministries’ fear of offending Western and BRICS-country capitalists and states. The recent 18 000 infections set new records which demands much bolder actions by government and society as a whole Relief First, it became immediately apparent in March 2020 once…

Jan

02

2021

By The African Mirror

Subdued Brazil New Year celebrations met with silence in COVID-19 ward

WORLD

LEONARDO BENASSATTO BRAZILIANS saw in 2021 with fireworks under unusual social distancing measures, while in a hospital intensive care ward outside Sao Paulo, doctors tending COVID-19 patients held one minute of silence for the passing of a deadly year. Medical staff stood at the foot of beds with people hooked up to ventilators, and then went around wishing their patients a happy New Year through face shields and masks. The sound of fireworks in the streets outside broke the monotony of whirring ventilators and beeping monitors. There was little to celebrate with 195,000 Brazilians losing their lives in the world's…

Jan

01

2021

By The African Mirror

COVID-19 shook, rattled and rolled the global economy in 2020

BUSINESS

DAN BURNS and MARK JOHN WHEN 2020 dawned, the global economy had just notched its 10th straight year of uninterrupted growth, a streak most economists and government finance officials expected to persist for years ahead in a 21st Century version of the "Roaring '20s." But within two months, a mysterious new virus first detected in China in December 2019 - the novel coronavirus - was spreading rapidly worldwide, shattering those expectations and triggering the steepest global recession in generations. The International Monetary Fund estimates the global economy to have shrunk by 4.4% this year compared with a contraction of just…

Dec

31

2020

By The African Mirror

Farewell “Mshini Wam”, an orator of note, with a razor sharp mind and a quick rejoinder

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

MATHATHA TSEDU ON April 6, 1991, a guerrilla unit of the Azanian National Liberation Army (Azanla), the armed wing of the then exiled Black Consciousness Movement of Azania (BCMA), was in a house in Mahwelereng township in Limpopo when police and army forces surrounded them. A shootout ensued during which a number of cops were killed. One of the unit members was Thabang Mothlodisi, a Polokwane-based trade unionist who hailed from Maokeng township in Kroonstad, whilst the other was Ronald Mashapu Malatji. Motlhodisi, known as “Cobra”, came out of the surrounded house with a grenade without the pin. A policeman…

Dec

31

2020

By The African Mirror

Celebrated French DJ tells fans ahead of Louvre gig: ‘get the vaccine’

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

FRENCH DJ David Guetta said he hoped everybody would get vaccinated against COVID-19, shortly before recording a charity concert outside the Louvre Museum in Paris that will be streamed on New Year's Eve. Guetta, known for his collaborations over nearly two decades with artists such as Akon, J Balvin, Nicki Minaj and Kelly Rowland, is raising money for UNICEF and French charity Les Restos du Coeur, which provides food and meals to people in need. "I'm going to do the vaccine, and I hope people are going to do it too because I don't see any other way to go…

Dec

31

2020

By The African Mirror

EXPLAINER-Where are we in the COVID-19 vaccine race?

COVID-19

BRITAIN has become the first country in the world to approve a coronavirus vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca, prioritizing the rapid deployment of the shot as it battles a major winter surge driven by a new, highly contagious variant of the virus. The following is what we know about the race to deliver vaccines to help end the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 1.7 million people worldwide: WHO IS FURTHEST ALONG? U.S. drugmaker Pfizer and German partner BioNTech are the COVID-19 vaccine trailblazers. On Nov. 18, they became the first in the world to release full…