This is our Armageddon

Against the overriding burden of state failure in SA, disease looms large.

The greatest pandemic in history, the influenza pandemic of 1918, was responsible for the deaths of more people in one year about 50-million than the Black Death more than a century earlier, and two to three times as many as Aids has in the past 30 years.

Yet the World Bank stated after the 20072009 financial crisis that the world would, sooner or later, find itself on the brink of another pandemic, that all counties would be affected, that medical supplies would be inadequate, that a large number of deaths would occur, and that economic and social disruption would be big.

This is our Armageddon; we are facing a catastrophic battle. Untold pressures on sources of economic wealth will abound, nuclear weapons will continue to proliferate and new diseases will always evolve. Nuclear weapons and climate change, terrorism, migration, economics, food and water supply and looming large disease, are global problems and as such require global solutions. Individual countries cannot effectively tackle these problems alone.

Barely a month after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Albert Einstein said the only salvation for civilisation and humanity was the creation of a world government to deal not only with matters of war but the other constructs mentioned above, including rampant disease. He went further to say that if a world government is not realistically attainable, there is only one realistic view of our future and that is the wholesale destruction of man by man.

To this I add man, by disease. There is not much the World Health Organisation, as a UN agency, can do to control this pandemic. I firmly believe it is up to us as individuals to control the spread of this scourge. Stan Sandler

Via e-mail ANC created the crisis

Observers have been unanimous in their praise for the government’s action on the coronavirus pandemic. In so doing they should not overlook that the problem is largely of the ANC government’s own doing. SA is, sadly, on the verge of witnessing thousands of virus-related deaths owing to the millions of unemployed living in appalling conditions. These poor souls may justifiably blame their lot on an ANC government that has destroyed the economy.

In the short space of 25 years the ANC has embraced globally discredited socialist economic practices. It has created a bloated public sector that has been crowding out an efficient private sector. It has employed a huge army of overpaid, inept public servants; supported state-owned enterprises run by grossly underqualified executives and employees, enabled (nay, encouraged) state capture and its accompanying widespread looting of financial resources; made 18-million people dependent on social grants funded by taxpayers’ hard-earned money; failed to root out the thieves (many of whom still occupy lofty government positions) complicit in the largescale thievery; borrowed to a degree that the nation is drowning in debt; and created a warranted junk status rating for the economy.

In short, had the economy been growing rather than shrinking, full employment would have eliminated the poverty and overcrowding in which pandemics thrive.

How does the ANC ruling elite sleep at night? John Spira

Johannesburg Data on chloroquine not in

A few days ago SA Health Products Regulatory Authority CEO Boitumelo Semete-Makokotlela told doctors to stop the “irrational prescribing of chloroquine”. This was a reasonable warning.

Though at the time chloroquine was one of several promising drugs under review for the treatment of Covid-19, according to the World Health Organisation chloroquine was not yet licensed as a treatment.

Chloroquine/hydroxychloroquine has been shown to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 in vitro and has been part of treatment guidelines of the China National Health Commission. Unfortunately it is premature to declare it effective, and will be until all the data supporting these claims is available.

In China it has been used in severe cases in a hospital setting, but has anything changed since the statement was issued that we can now safely use chloroquine in SA? Was the HPCSA wrong? What if doctors want to add Lopinavir-ritonavir to the treatment regimen? Who is clinically in charge of Covid-19 treatment: politicians or scientists? Dr Lucas Ntyintyane

Via e-mail Labour laws still in effect

There has been a lot of confusion over labour issues arising from the Covid-19 lockdown. Are employees who have been told to stay home and can’t work remotely entitled to be paid? Can employers make employees take paid leave?

State of disaster notwithstanding, we are still governed by our labour legislation, specifically the Basic Conditions of Employment Act and Labour Relations Act. The former answers both of the above questions categorically.

A wage is defined as “the amount of money paid or payable to an employee in respect of ordinary hours of work, or if they are shorter than the hours an employee ordinarily works in a day or week.” In essence, a wage is only given in return for hours worked. If the hours are not worked there would be no legal claim for a wage or salary.

However, the department of employment & labour has asked employers to pay employees while on lockdown if they possibly can, or to at least try to make up the difference between payments from the Unemployment Insurance Fund and the actual wage.

On forced leave the Basic Conditions of Employment Act, section 20 (10)(b) reads annual leave must be taken “(a) in accordance with an agreement between the employer and employee; or (b) if there is no agreement in terms of paragraph (a) at a time determined by the employer in accordance with this section”.

If there is no agreement on leave, and no paid leave is owing unpaid leave must be taken.

Many employers have chosen to structure hybrid payment solutions to help protect employees who cannot work during the lockdown. Michael Bagraim, MP

DA deputy shadow employment & labour minister Message in junk rating

The DA has been at the forefront of calls over many years to release the fiscus from the burden posed by bankrupt state-owned enterprises such as SAA and to privatise Eskom’s power plants, with a significantly more liberal regime governing independent power producers.

The Moody’s credit rating downgrade now underscores the need for this to happen. It is time for government to wake up. If fact, liquidation and privatisation will free up capital to assist in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic. Time has run out. It’s official: our investment status is now junk. Ghaleb Cachalia, MP

DA shadow public enterprises minister

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