EIGHTEEN percent of South African households reported someone going hungry at the end of last year, a survey published on yesterday found, with the situation worsening despite welfare payments to fight the impact of COVID-19. The hunger rate compares to 14% recorded in an official survey in 2018, showing the impact of the pandemic, researchers wrote in findings of the National Income Dynamics Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey (NIDS-CRAM), which followed 10,000 adults. "The reduction of social protection while rates of adult and child hunger are still at the highest they have been for a decade will have severe consequences," they…