In any national health disaster calling individuals to voluntarily restrict their movements and interactions, the conflict between public interest and personal autonomy is bound to become messy.
Indigenous people suffered greatly during the last global pandemic – the Spanish flu in 1918-19. They are vulnerable again because we still haven’t addressed inequalities in our public health system.
Densely populated urban areas are great drivers of economic development and innovation, but that also makes them a fertile ground for the spread of pandemics.
In reacting to the pandemic, architecture can reclaim its impact by conceding its loss of connection with public health, looking beyond Western thinking for its references.
Facebook, Google and Twitter are stepping up to block misinformation and promote accurate information about the coronavirus. Their track records on self-policing are poor. The results so far are mixed.
While testing is central to the fight against COVID-19, there are a myriad of factors to consider, especially by African countries, when taking decisions to curtail the spread of the disease.
Online news sources continue to grow as a primary source of information and misinformation. But private platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger are harder to monitor.
Much of the world is moving online in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Society’s newly increased dependence on the internet is bringing the need for good cyber policy into sharp relief.
Social distancing is vital to curb the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. But it doesn’t have to be purely physical - we can separate ourselves in time too, by staggering our daily routines.
Dean Faculty of Health Sciences and Professor of Vaccinology at University of the Witwatersrand; and Director of the SAMRC Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytics Research Unit, University of the Witwatersrand
Principal Medical Scientist and Head of Laboratory for Antimalarial Resistance Monitoring and Malaria Operational Research, National Institute for Communicable Diseases
Professor and Programme Director, SA MRC Centre for Health Economics and Decision Science - PRICELESS SA (Priority Cost Effective Lessons in Systems Strengthening South Africa), University of the Witwatersrand
Professor of medicine and deputy director of the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre at the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine, University of Cape Town