The Weekend View

The South African Tourism industry could possibly lose between 20 and 30 billion rand this festive season. This is due to the high number of booking cancellations, following the discovery Omicron - the latest COVID-19 variant.  Several countries including the United States and United Kingdom imposed travel bans to and from South Africa, during the peak holiday season.  With a rapid increase in the number of infections locally, many holidaymakers have also put their domestic travel plans on hold

The South African Music Rights Organisation (SAMRO) says its turnaround strategy is working wonders as its licence and royalties collection grew by 4% from R325.8 Million to R338.8 Million in 2020. The organisation also says that its online revenue has increased by 110% and that it has also improved its solvency position due to lower debtor and cash management. SAMRO is also calling for pubs, mobile DJs, clubs, restaurants and shopping malls to pay their fair share in royalties for playing local artists music.

Community service doctors for 2022 have threatened to haul the National Department of Health before the high court if their demands for clarity on their placements are not met, The threat of legal action is a result of the department's lack of funding to put community service doctors on placements after the department said that it had 2 252 posts that needed to be filled, but could only fill 1 588 as there was funding for only that number of posts, leaving over 600 doctors in limbo.

South Africa is officially on the fourth wave of the covid 19 pandemic. Health Minister Joe Phaahla made the announcement. He says, while they are still trying to understand the newly discovered Omicron variant, what they have discovered so far is that the variant is highly infectious. Phaahla has raised concern over the sharp increase in the number of positive cases in Gauteng and fears that the holiday season may accelerate the variant to spread to other provinces. Over 11-thousand new positive cases have been identified in South Africa and over 8-thousand of those were in Gauteng alone.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has condemned the recent travel bans on South Africa and other African nations after the detection of the new COVID-19 variant Omicron. Ramaphosa warned against the risk of "health apartheid" as he took aim at travel bans imposed on Southern African countries after it detected the new variant. On a visit to Ivory Coast, he said the curbs, which many countries have also applied to countries across southern Africa, were "regrettable, unfair and unscientific." Ramaphosa says "Given that it was our own African scientists who first detected the Omicron variant, it is also a slap in the face of African excellence and expertise," Ramaphosa was on  a week long visit to Nigeria, Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire and Senegal. 

Since March 2020…..Covid -19 has cost many providers their livelihoods….
Freelancers can be categorized as full-time independent contractors, temp workers employed by staffing firms, gig workers, project-based workers, self-employed business owners, and people working in a mix of these areas and in traditional employment. Yet in some countries like the USA we have also seen a growth in the number people doing it on their own from a home office… temping for companies reliant on telephony services as well as the financial services industry- as more and more of these services begin offerings on virtual or telephonic platforms. 

Trucking companies have called on government to sort out the severe and adverse congestion on the Maputo Corridor that has seen them lose over R 1.3 billon a year. Companies say the congestion is due to long delays in crossing the border due to lack of a 24 hour service amongst others. The queue of trucks between Komatipoort and Lebombo is reportedly about 7 and 15km long on a regular basis. Meanwhile yesterday trucks closed off the highway in both directions since the early hours of this morning, forcing a lengthy traffic backlog. The South African Cargo Transport Drivers Association claims that truck drivers who have blocked the highway, are protesting against the employment of foreign drivers

South Africa has the biggest HIV epidemic in the world, with 7.7 million people living with the virus. South Africa has also made huge improvements in getting people to test for HIV in recent years. It has now met the first of the 90-90-90 targets, with 90% of people living with HIV aware of their status in 2018. However, since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and responses to it, there was a substantial decline in the number of HIV-infected individuals starting treatment in South Africa. South African health technology startup Aviro has unveiled a digital health service to improve the current situation and to continue the fight against the HIV epidemic.

Gender-based violence (GBV) continues to plague communities across South Africa. Higher education institutions are not immune to this alarming trend of sexual violence, with increasing incidents being reported across our campuses and their surrounds frequently. Dr Ruby-Ann Levendal of Nelson Mandela University says although greater awareness about GBV exists both in society and in higher education institutions, there has been a chronic lack of policy implementation at higher education institutions.

Health Minister Doctor Joe Phaahla, says there is a possibility of an inter-provincial travel ban this festive season as a result of the rising number of COVID-19 infections. More than 2-thousand 8-hundred cases were recorded today, with 12 deaths. More than 80-percent of the new infections are in Gauteng. However the Health Department says the new variant is spreading rapidly across the country