Seamstress Aletta Mashao and others do not spend much time thinking about distribution channels, market linkages or exchange rates. As the main breadwinners in their households, what they do know is that when they make face masks for the COVID-19 pandemic, they and their extended families have food on the table. But a recent consignment of masks exported to Belgium has taken township businesses to new heights.

Mashao and Tsotetsi are among the more than 270 township seamstresses who are part of YES’s (Youth Employment Service) Masks4All initiative, which has already seen nearly 120,000 masks made, and resulted in a desperately needed injection of over R1m into township businesses - a small fortune, given that these businesses were cut off from earning money during lockdown.

Shooting scatters Saturday morning shoppers at Pretoria Mall. Centurion resident Neil Hosken was in the mall when the robbers hit. This is his story.

The Gauteng Department of Health will be instituting disciplinary proceedings against staff involved in the swapping of newly born babies at Tambo Memorial Hospital, in Boksburg.

The two babies, a boy and girl were born 24 July 2020. The baby girl’s mother realised at around 9pm when she changed the baby’s napkin that it is not her baby as she delivered a baby girl and she instead had a baby boy.

President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the closure of schools and the extension of the school year last week, but at what cost to South African students and the larger economy?

Dr Nic Spaull, a senior researcher at Stellenbosch University, and associate professor Maximus Sefotho at the University of Johannesburg outline the dire consequences for the future of SA and its students should more of the 2020 academic year be lost.

Both agree that urgent steps need to be taken to get learning back on track.

During her last week of pregnancy, an exhausted Neo Mokgautsi stood in a queue at the labour department in Roodepoort on the West Rand for more than five hours, hoping to submit her maternity leave claim.

Fast forward and baby will soon be three-months-old. Mokgautsi, a sales assistant at a clothing store who was on maternity leave at the start of the lockdown, found herself back in the same queue. All this time she has been struggling to submit the claim.

All public schools must close for a month, President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Thursday, with matrics taking a week off, and grade 7s two weeks.

“Cabinet has decided today [Thursday] that all public schools should take a break for the next four weeks,” he said.

This means that schools will close from July 27 to August 24.

“The president’s address follows a number of meetings of the cabinet and the national coronavirus command council,” the presidency said in a statement.

Fame and the limelight have never been on Megan Smith’s radar. Neither has the thought of being a go-to person for thousands of anxious, overwhelmed and frightened South Africans.

But because of Covid-19 her life changed overnight. The disease has thrust her into new directions as thousands of South Africans, anxious about the virus and becoming infected, turn to her and her blog for advice, counselling and reassurance.

Lunga from Gauteng has spoken candidly, and with regret in hindsight, about the personal consequences of ignoring the lockdown regulations. He knew he was breaking the law, but so were his friends. He ended up in hospital.

When her boyfriend took her to hospital after allegedly punching her so hard in the face that he destroyed an eye, Josina Machel summoned the courage to tell the doctors that he did it - while he tried to convince them that she injured herself in a fall.

Friday catch-up sessions and weekend nights out have turned into Zoom meetings with a cup of ginger and lemon concoctions. 

Since the implementation of lockdown, the entertainment industry has been put on standby as human contact is prohibited.

Online platforms, however, have seen a huge surge with more people streaming online to listen to their favourite DJs and interact with them on platforms such as Instagram and Facebook Live.

This has been the only way DJs and artists have been able to stay afloat during this uncertain and difficult period.