Author: Contributor

by Marcos E. García-Ojeda I, like many Americans, miss the pre-pandemic world of hugging family and friends, going to work and having dinner at a restaurant. A protective vaccine for SARS-Cov2 is likely to be the most effective public health tool to get back to that world. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, cautiously estimates that a vaccine could be available in 12 to 18 months. I am a professor of microbiology and immunology and study how the immune system develops. I think Dr. Fauci’s estimate is an optimistic one, but possible. Traditional vaccine…

The sudden disruption that COVID-19 has brought on the working world has challenged businesses to shift and innovate at an unprecedented speed and scale. Those of us equipped to be working from home find ourselves in the middle of a worldwide experiment in WFH (work from home) culture, but when it comes to the question of returning to the workplace, expert opinions on the matter seem to agree on one thing: there is no “back to normal” – only the “new normal” in a post-pandemic world. Very few businesses can operate remotely on a permanent basis, and so a return…

Canon South Africa announced the appointment of its new Managing Director, David Preston, in January 2020. Preston, who has risen through the ranks over the years, from his first position as a Direct Salesman in 1988 to Sales Manager leading one of the first teams in the UK selling Canon’s range of colour laser copiers. He has held multiple positions in sales and marketing over the years, as well as roles in channel sales and as Head of Indirect Sales for EMEA created the first consistent Partner Program. Joining Canon South Africa from a London based role, Preston’s last assignment…

by Christopher Webb, and Natasha Vally South African President Cyril Ramaphosa recently announced a significant package of social and economic measures to address the fallout from the country’s COVID-19 lockdown. The package includes a R50 billion increase to the value of existing social grants, a new grant and delivery of food parcels to poor households. All will last for six months. The news came after civil society organisations, researchers and unions expressed concerns about the shortfall in existing welfare support. The social grant increases are particularly necessary now. They will keep millions from starvation. But after the crisis has abated…

by Johannes Becker and David Starobinski On April 10, Apple and Google announced a coronavirus exposure notification system that will be built into their smartphone operating systems, iOS and Android. The system uses the ubiquitous Bluetooth short-range wireless communication technology. There are dozens of apps being developed around the world that alert people if they’ve been exposed to a person who has tested positive for COVID-19. Many of them also report the identities of the exposed people to public health authorities, which has raised privacy concerns. Several other exposure notification projects, including PACT, BlueTrace and the Covid Watch project, take…

by Mmaki Jantjies South Africa’s education system is complex, with historical inequalities dating back to apartheid. Most of the country’s pupils come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Language is an issue; most pupils do not speak English as a mother tongue, yet English dominates in many classrooms. And, as the COVID-19 crisis has showed, there’s a huge digital divide at play. Read more: Five things South Africa must get right for tech in schools to work The ongoing effects of the virus have kept pupils and teachers at home. This has necessitated a move to e-learning. In theory, this could be an…

by Alison Gillwald; Anri van der Spuy, and Gabriella Razzano Tracking people infected with COVID-19 has become an important weapon in global responses to combatting the virus. Through the use of geo-location, mobile technology offers a simple solution for tracing people possibly exposed to COVID-19. With big data analytics there is the potential for tracking the pandemic’s spread, and employing analytics to forecast future patterns of contagion. But at what cost? These are exceptional times calling for extraordinary measures. But do they justify the wholesale sacrifice of our rights? Concerns loom large across the globe. More than 100 civil society…

by Gale Ure The search for a COVID-19 vaccine has sparked international media controversy and negative sentiment around the potential harm of people taking part in clinical trials once the research enters its human testing phase. A wave of anger was ignited when two top French doctors said on live TV that coronavirus vaccines should be tested on poor Africans. The doctors later apologised for suggesting that COVID-19 vaccine trials should be carried out on a continent where the people were largely impoverished, with limited resources, and unable to protect themselves. The statements made by Camille Locht and Jean-Paul Mira…

by Andrew Brown During a pandemic, access to accurate and current information is key. Data sharing is more important than ever under the current coronavirus pandemic. One of the key tenets of the government’s mooted National Health Insurance is that public and private healthcare be able to share patient data as the person moves through the system. This data should be secured and only shared with the patient’s permission. All healthcare practitioners, regardless of whether they’re public or private sector, face an enormous challenge around capturing patient information accurately, one way of doing that would be to allow the patient…

by Peter van Heusden One important aspect of managing emerging infections is identifying chains of transmission and assigned cases to clusters of infection. A case in point is South African trade union leader Zwelinzima Vavi, who spent a few days in the hospital with the new coronavirus disease. He stated that he “had no idea” where he may have contracted the virus and was scrutinising his travel history for clues. This experience is hardly unusual and would be more so for South Africans using public transport and living in crowded circumstances. To ensure that scientists can trace people’s contacts, stronger…