The Eastern Cape recorded its first Covid-19 case yesterday as the national tally rose to 240, but much attention was directed at what social media users felt was a profoundly inappropriate video posted by Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu.

The video shows the cheery minister, out and about in a public place, joking about finding it difficult to stay home, the one measure acknowledged as the best way for the public to contribute to flattening the infection curve and saving healthcare facilities from being overwhelmed.

The minister is the picture of nonchalance in the video, in which she says: ‘Stay at home if you can, I am finding it difficult to stay at home.’

She issued an apology after the outcry.

This came as positive cases in South Africa grew by 38, with the Eastern Cape recording its first case, a 28-year-old woman who had travelled to Germany.

The only provinces with no confirmed cases so far are the Northern Cape and North West.

Of the 240 cases so far, 16 are local transmissions and 46 are unknown, travel histories either not having been recorded, or not having been confirmed yet.    

So far, 7 425 South Africans have been tested.

In other virus-related news in South Africa:

  • UCT has announced that a third academic has been tested positive
  • The National Pathology Group has alerted the government that the pressure of requests for Covid-19 tests has placed pathology labs in the country under extreme pressure. It notes that worldwide demand has created bottlenecks in the supply of N95 (close-fitting) and surgical masks, nasopharyngeal swabs, gloves and testing kits; and
  • Bloomberg reports that South African companies are responding to the coronavirus outbreak with social initiatives as well as plans to keep their businesses operating smoothly. Among them, Aspen Pharmacare, Africa’s biggest drugmaker, is in talks with the government on fast-tracking production of certain key medicines, Vodacom is offering online classes in all 11 South African languages and providing free data services to job-search portals, health sites and government services, and MultiChoice has made certain news channels free to air and is broadcasting public-service announcements.

Globally:

  • Close to one billion people worldwide were confined to their homes on Saturday as the global coronavirus death toll shot past 12 000, and US states rolled out lockdown measures already imposed across much of Europe;
  • News24 reported that Italy yesterday recorded 793 new coronavirus deaths, a one-day record that saw its toll shoot up to 4 825 – 38.3 percent of the world’s total;
  • Spain’s death toll rose by 324 in one day, bringing the total to 1 326. The number of cases rose by 5 000 in one day, bringing the total to 24 926.
  • The World Health Organisation welcomed the news on Friday that the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the new coronavirus first emerged in December, had for the first time reported no new cases in 24 hours;
  • Supermarkets in the United Kingdom are hiring new staff as demand surges, according to the BBC. Along with other measures to cope with the increased demand, some of the chains have embarked on big recruitment drives for a total of more than 30 000 jobs.
  • The Olympic flame, delivered to Japan from Athens, was used to light the cauldron at a small ceremony. At this stage, organisers say the Games will go on.

In lighter vein, people around the world have been adjusting creatively to the sudden disruption of their routine lives.

With pubs, clubs and meeting places closing down, the BBC reports, David Chriswick from Swansea has gone a step further and opened his own online pub from his new home in Chicago in the United States. ‘With quiz nights, live music and a virtual landlady called Anne, he has already built an international clientele.’

Pop stars – among them Coldplay frontman Chris Martin and country singer Keith Urban – have been live-streaming gigs to counter the boredom of self-isolation.

But what do you do if you’re a sports commentator?

This was not a problem for rugby commentator Nick Heath, who turned his attention to commentating on everyday life, with clever, witty, and charming results.

Here’s one:

And here’s another:

The results, as website thepoke.com rightly concludes, ‘really will make your day better’.

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