Top medical scientists say the government’s decision to close schools again is wrong.
According to News24, University of the Witwatersrand vaccinologist Shabir Madhi said the government appeared to have heeded unions, but not scientists.
‘I think it’s a case of government deciding to take advice from the unions, rather than from the scientists, because the scientific community has been pretty uniform that there is very little reason to close the schools.
‘The opening of the schools has got very little to do with the transmission of the virus and if anything, the closure of the schools is going to do more harm than good,’ he said.
The news site also quoted Professor Glenda Gray, a paediatrician and president of the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC), as saying that the decision on schools went against scientific evidence on the impact of Covid-19 on children.
‘Keeping children out of school is a sad thing for South Africa,’ she said. ‘Scientists, paediatricians and doctors have considered the epidemic, both at a global and local level and have immense evidence on how Covid-19 affects children. We believed that it was the best thing for children to be at school because we do not believe that Covid-19 infection poses a risk to their health.’
Meanwhile, South African Democratic Teachers’ Union general secretary Mugwena Maluleke was reported as saying there was no need to be chasing the completion of the curriculum and that it should be understood that there was a pandemic and therefore not everything would be covered by pupils.
Positive cases grew in South Africa yesterday by 13 944 to a cumulative total of 421 996 (with 245 771 recoveries). Deaths rose by 250 to 6 343.
The tally of cases is highest in Gauteng (153 020), followed by the Western Cape (90 011), the Eastern Cape (71 338) and KwaZulu-Natal (57 162).
In other virus-related news
- The Fair Trade Independent Tobacco Association’s application to appeal the ruling upholding the ban on cigarettes was rejected by the High Court in Pretoria. A full bench of the court dismissed the application with costs, saying the organisation ‘failed to show that the appeal bears reasonable prospects of success’;
- Police used stun grenades and water cannon to disperse some 200 protesters who had gathered outside Parliament to raise awareness about the plight of the hospitality industry. #ServeUsPlease protest spokesperson Ashleigh Perremore said the movement had notified both the Office of the President as well as city officials, but had received no notification that the peaceful protest was not allowed. ‘In the absence of a request refusal, we took this omission of refusal to mean that both the Office of the President as well as the City of Cape Town would allow a peaceful protest to happen.’ The Restaurants Association of South Africa, which held a separate event in Johannesburg on Wednesday, said it had not organised the Cape Town protest;
- Treasury reportedly turned down an Eastern Cape government plan to use some of the Buffalo City metro’s R340 million housing budget to build a 1 000-bed field hospital in East London; and
- A Gauteng government presentation yesterday acknowledged that, though the province had fed nearly two million people, the demand for food outstripped its capacity to meet the need. It called for continued support from business, foundations and civil society, which it would coordinate.