Inside Covid-19

In episode 39 of Inside Covid-19, Discovery and its partners combine to provide a R249 per month medical aid for 1.2m household workers; an emotional chairman of the country’s black tobacco farmer association who says his members are being put out of business by a Government whose cigarette ban supports criminals; Biznews's partners at the Wall Street Journal get the real story on why Donald Trump is sterilising the World Health Organisation; and in the wake of Covid-19 and president Cyril Ramaphosa’s call for a $200bn debt standstill for Africa, we take a close look at mushrooming Emerging Market loans. - Alec Hogg

In episode 38 of Inside Covid-19, we meet former Harvard Medical Professor William Haseltine, the HIV/Aids pioneer who has forthright suggestions on the steps SA should take to handle the pandemic; talk coronavirus with the super achieving Wits Prof Roseanne Harris who is about to become president of the International Actuarial Association; and revisit the chequered history of lockdowns which, in the West, only became official policy in 2006. - Alec Hogg

In episode 37 of Inside Covid 19, on a day when South Africa’s confirmed infections rose above 19,000, Discovery’s chief actuary Emile Stipp and Prof Guy Richards, a critical care expert from Wits, assess the country’s tough road ahead; we revisit the Maritzburg ventilator-making company and find out its offer to produce the much needed life-saving equipment is being drowned in a sea of red tape; there are baby steps for a travel sector that was paralysed by coronavirus lockdowns; and an analysis of the role of super-spreading events like music concerts and soccer games. - Alec Hogg

In episode 36 of Inside Covid-19, the Small Business Institute expects a major opening of the economy soon; Discovery Insure is rebating 25% of its members’ April premiums; We ask whether coronavirus killed open plan offices?; Donald Trump’s hydroxychloroquine endorsement gets another fan – Elon Musk; top global political risk consultancy Eurasia says multinationals are fretting about South Africa’s dimmed economic prospects; and we take a close look at Moderna, the company whose promising Covid-19 vaccine tests sent the price of US stocks – and oil – soaring. - Alec Hogg

A bumper edition of Inside Covid-19 with good news as the first human coronavirus vaccine tests deliver promising results while other medical treatments are being uncovered at a rapid clip; DA leader John Steenhuisen explains why SA’s official opposition political party is going to court to stop what it calls "lockdown irrationality"; we hear from the UCT prof whose research shows the cigarette ban has been a disaster for everyone except the underworld; concerns that SA’s 7,000 sit-down restaurants and the 1m people they support face impossible odds of survival if current regulations continue; and as the lockdown slowly eases in SA, nations around the world are fretting about a possible second wave of infections. - Alec Hogg

In episode 34 of Inside Covid 19, we have highlights from Cyril Ramaphosa's address on the easing in South Africa's lockdown regulations; answers for the millions of Vitality members wondering whether Comair going into business rescue means the end of their cheap flights; South Africa’s only living Nobel prizewinning scientist Prof Michael Levitt’s scorecard on how his former homeland is handling the crisis; a crisis of a different kind as Airbnb entrepreneurs – who own 22,000 properties in Cape Town alone - struggle to stay afloat; and the invasive measures companies are applying on the office and home lives of their workers. - Alec Hogg

In episode 33 of Inside Covid 19, South Africa’s leading social media lawyer explains why fake news has been surging in the coronavirus crisis; the chairman of Grindrod and Spar explains why lockdown’s Level 4 needs to be dropped – and urgently; Barloworld uses Covid-19 to try pull out of a R5.35bn potentially life-saving deal for Tongaat; worrying news from New York where previously rare coronavirus-related Kawasaki disease is hitting children; and our partners at Bloomberg argue that the world needs a probe into US president Donald Trump’s often stated theory that Covid-19 started in a Wuhan lab. - Alec Hogg

In episode 32 of Inside Covid 19 we crunch some numbers with an actuary to find exercising regularly and eating healthily dramatically drops the prospect of being hospitalised for Covid-19; former finance minister Trevor Manuel joins a chorus calling for changes to some irrational lockdown regulations; we unpack organised business’s call to drop the lockdown level from 4 to 2; a Wits professor asks whether SA has indeed flattened the Covid-19 infection curve; and we catch up with the Bali-stranded SA doctor who has finally made it home to her four children. - Alec Hogg

In episode 31 of Inside Covid 19, an in-depth interview with neurosurgeon Prof Ian Vlok on Tygerberg Hospital’s Covid-19 robots – and why local medics believe the country needs to urgently open up; a warning by the actuaries at Panda that the unintended consequences of the lockdown will kill 29 times more people than the virus; how the new world of office work will be very different to the pre-Covid-19 norm; and a message to struggling companies from a business rescue practitioner who advises them to take the tough decisions sooner rather than later. - Alec Hogg

In episode 30 of Inside Covid 19, granular research by Business4SA concludes the economy could contract by a staggering 17% this year; we hear from money manager Thys du Toit whose plea to the president to open up the country went viral; a UK professor explains why our species has become so obsessed with fake news in this time of coronavirus; and growing evidence that in Africa, virus-instigated lockdowns do more harm than good. - Alec Hogg