South Africa’s disaster management plan targets the most vulnerable. But it needs to respond in a more deliberate way when it comes to people with disabilities.
President Donald Trump has been widely slammed for mishandling the COVID-19 crisis, costing the US dearly.
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Ramaphosa’s call for a new social compact will fall on deaf ears unless there are some fundamental changes to the way in which the pandemic is being managed.
In the United Kingdom, where the population is now confined, a man wearing a mask walks in the street on March 26, 2020.
Oli Scarff/AFP
Fabrice Flipo, Institut Mines-Télécom Business School
The pandemic, in that it represents a major and therefore exceptional risk, calls for a response built collectively, and not by a small group of experts or decision-makers.
There has been a rapid redirection of resources towards COVID-19-related research. In the long term, this resource reallocation is likely to result in budget cuts in all research areas.
Political polarisation remains clear in responses to COVID-19.
Oliver Contreras/EPA
Too much ultraviolet radiation is dangerous for human health. Excessive exposure can cause skin ageing and sunburn and can induce melanoma, cataracts, ocular melanoma, and immunodeficiency.
A nearly deserted street in the city of Nice, France, on May 6, the 51st day of lockdown there. Europe’s method of reopening is markedly different from the U.S. plan.
Getty Images / Valery Hache
Early reports by the National Health Laboratory Service indicated that it had the capacity to do 30,000 tests a day. But capability to do so has not materialised.
Chronic pain is everyone’s problem. It’s costly, debilitating and, according to new statistics, increasingly common. Reversing the trend is achieveable but far from easy.
Workers from Kinross Gold Mine, South Africa.
Brooks Kraft LLC/Sygma via Getty Images
The threat posed by COVID-19 on mines is considerable. The main reasons are cramped working conditions underground, transportation in packed cages, and a high incidence of other respiratory diseases.
Lack of technology infrastructure is a barrier to mobile healthcare in Nigeria
Stefan Heunis/AFP via Getty Images
Mobile technology has great potential to improve healthcare in Nigeria but government must provide regulatory framework.
A public health worker takes details from a man volunteering to be tested for COVID-19 in the bustling Kawangware market in Nairobi.
Tony Karumba/AFP via Getty Images
As COVID-19 cases continue to increase in Kenya, there is a looming threat for escalated disease and death due to the many people with chronic conditions.
Can social distancing and lockdown
can work in South Africa’s townships and informal settlements?
Getty Images
South Africa’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic was one of ‘intervene first and ask questions later’. Now is the time for government to state clearly what its strategic endgame is.
People, some wearing masks, enjoy a walk in a park in Rome as Italy, the first nation to impose a nationwide lockdown against the coronavirus, begins to reopen – slowly.
Franco Origlia/Getty Images
It’s possible to evaluate countries’ readiness to lift their lockdowns, based on how well they managed the first wave of the pandemic, and how ready they are for a digital economy.
A cashier works wearing a face mask in a supermarket on April 15, 2020 near Lyon.
Jean-Philippe Ksiazek/AFP
Emilie Counil, Ined (Institut national d'études démographiques) and Myriam Khlat, Ined (Institut national d'études démographiques)
In addition to the elderly and health workers, those holding front-line jobs are particularly exposed. Infection risk and aggravating co-morbidities could compound social inequalities in time of crisis.
The man in the ironed mask: French president Emmanuel Macron changed his policy on mask-wearing in April.
Ian Langsdon/EPA
There are two principles governments use to make public health decisions, and on mask-wearing they’re in direct conflict.
Community members wearing protective face masks as they queue for aid in Zandspruit informal settlement, north of Johannesburg.
Phill Magakoe/AFP via Getty Images
Wearing masks is being introduced in conjunction with maintaining a physical distance of at least 1.5 metres and following hygiene measures such as hand washing.
Some countries are making it work – and the rest could learn from them.
A worker from Sanctuary, a Christian charitable organization, tends to homeless people in their tents during the COVID-19 pandemic in Toronto on April 28, 2020.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette
Canadian and American religious groups are responding very differently to coronavirus public health measures. Why? In Canada, health care is more widely regarded as a public good and a right.
A health worker collecting sample test kits from a nurse during a community COVID-19 testing campaign in Lagos.
Photo by Olukayode Jaiyeola/NurPhoto via Getty Images
As Nigeria battles COVID-19, systemic corruption and a low level of accountability in the health sector may undermine efforts to halt the devastating effect of the virus.
Lockdowns to curb the coronavirus have shut down Africa’s dominant informal economy, destroying livelihoods.
Simon Maina/AFP/GettyImages
Katherine E. Gallagher, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine; Anthony Scott, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine; Ifedayo Adetifa, KEMRI Wellcome Trust Research Programme; John Ojal, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine; Shirine Voller, KEMRI Wellcome Trust Research Programme, and Wangeci Kagucia, KEMRI Wellcome Trust Research Programme
Coronavirus is a stark reminder of what a world without vaccines would look like.
Job seekers wait on the side of a road in South Africa. Joblessness stands at a record high.
Mujahid Safodien/AFP via Getty Images
Economic distress was the norm for many before the coronavirus outbreak. The pandemic is an opportunity to provide an economically secure future for all.