Renny Simone

By Renny Simone

MAIN PHOTO: South African President Cyril Ramaphosa struggles to put on a cloth mask. The incident has been heavily lampooned on social media. SOURCE: eNCA

With the eyes of the nation upon him, President Cyril Ramaphosa gave his fellow South Africans something they desperately needed: a good laugh.

The moment came at the end of Ramaphosa’s Thursday-night address, in which he announced the government’s plans to begin easing lockdown restrictions starting 1 May. 

Ramaphosa said that even as the country begins to reopen, all citizens will be urged to wear facemasks whenever they leave their homes.

The President then took out a cloth mask he had brought with him to the podium, intending to lead by example.

And, after ten grueling seconds of struggle that temporarily blindfolded him, he managed to put it on, before turning quickly from the podium and shuffling off the stage.

The response from social media was nearly instantaneous.

“If I can’t see the virus, the virus can’t see me”, wrote one Twitter user, along with a screenshot of the mishap in which Ramaphosa’s eyes are totally covered by the mask.

Others referenced Bird Box, a 2018 horror film in which characters have to cover their eyes to avoid an evil force that kills all who see it.

In a lighter vein, SABC presenter Minnie Dlamini Jones thought the moment revealed something about her country’s sense of humor.

“I don’t know a nation on this planet that loves to laugh like South Africans”, the actress tweeted.

And at least one person wondered whether the flub was, in fact, an act of patriotic self-sacrifice.

“What if Ramaphosa was struggling to wear the mask on purpose in order for us to laugh,” @GetsonChirwa said.

Whether or not the act was intentional, Ramaphosa has since embraced the joke.

“For those of you who were laughing at me yesterday”, Ramaposa told reporters on Friday, as he pulled out another mask, “I’m going to open a TV channel where I am going to teach people how to put on a mask.”

The President, however, made no attempt to don the mask while cameras were rolling.

By Renny Simone

MAIN PHOTO: A frame from a video that has been widely circulated on social media, apparently showing police action against nurses demanding PPE equipment. Source: Twitter @MichaelSun168

Some South African nurses are threatening to stay home from work unless the government meets their demands for, among other things, increased compensation and more protective equipment by 1 May.

The Young Nurses Indaba Trade Union (YNITU), which represents nurses and other healthcare workers, made the strike threat on Wednesday in response to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s latest address to the nation. Ramaphosa’s Tuesday-evening speech outlined a R500 billion relief package designed to alleviate the economic crisis posed by coronavirus. But YNITU believes that not enough is being done for healthcare workers.

“[YNITU] couldn’t stomach President Cyril Ramaphosa’s address to the nation that once again failed to address the plight of those who are battling the Covid-19 pandemic in the frontline”, the union said in a media statement.

In addition to longstanding concerns about a shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) in South Africa’s hospitals, the union believes that nurses should receive greater compensation for the work they are doing.

“The least the government could do is give nurses an income tax break or a Covid-19 danger allowance in these trying times”, the statement said.

The South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU), with which YNITU is aligned, supported the demands in a media release that was generally critical of Ramaphosa’s address.

But the South African Department of Health has warned that a nurses’ strike would be a criminal offense, reported News24. 

“The Ministry of Health implores every health worker to contribute in the fight against this pandemic,” Popo Maja, spokesman for the Department of Health, told the outlet. 

Another union representing nurses, the Democratic Nursing Organization of South Africa (Denosa), has also criticised the government’s position on nurses. A member of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), from which SAFTU split in 2017, Denosa has not called for a strike. But comments from Secretary-General Cassim Lekhoathi express similar disappointments to those raised in the YNITU statement.

“The frustration comes because in April there was supposed to be a salary increase, but [the] government has basically said they don’t have the money to do it,” Lekhoathi told The South African website. 

“It was a slap in the face of nurses,” Lekhoathi continued.

The strike threat has generated significant debate on social media. #CovidNurseStayAway has been tweeted over 10,000 times since YNITU tweeted the initial statement, and the hashtag spent hours as the top-trending in South Africa on Wednesday, according to trends24.

Some South Africans had harsh words for the nurses threatening to strike.

“This Hashtag is just pure arrogance,” one user tweeted. “[I’m] afraid for patients that are being treated by nurses with this mentality”.

“This hashtag tells me a lot about how many people didn’t know what becoming a nurse was all about,” said another.

Others are expressing solidarity.

“I stand with our nurses, They are the Most over worked and disrespected civil servants,” one user wrote.

President Ramaphosa is due to address the nation again on Thursday evening. The speech is set to focus on the government’s plan to ease lockdown restrictions, according to TimesLive.

By Renny Simone

MAIN PHOTO: A young child and an adult read a storybook together. SOURCE: Lina Kivaka from Pexels

If you want to nurture the little scientist in your child, give him or her a book. That, at any rate, is what the scientists are saying.

A new study published this week has found that children prefer storybooks that tell them something about how things happen – which may help parents understand why their children’s favourite question is, Why?

Jean Piaget, a 20th century pioneer of developmental psychology, often called children “little scientists” because of their natural curiosity and insistence on explanation.

Piaget and others established that children tend to prefer “causally rich” information – that is, information that helps explain “the why and how of the world”. 

But the new study by researchers from Vanderbilt University and the University of Texas, published in Frontiers in Psychology, has taken a novel approach to the question.

Where most previous studies have taken place in artificial laboratory settings, the authors of the latest research wanted to see whether the findings could be repeated in a more practical context.

“There has been a lot of research on children’s interest in causality, but these studies almost always take place in a research lab using highly contrived procedures and activities,” according to one of the researchers, Margaret Shavlik, of Vanderbilt University.

“We wanted to explore how this early interest in causal information might affect everyday activities with young children – such as joint book reading.”

Shavlik and her co-authors – Amy E Booth, also from Vanderbilt, and Jessie Raye Bauer from the University of Texas – anticipated that young children would prefer books with more explanatory information to those with less. The researchers selected two books by the same author – one “causally rich”, the other “minimally causal” – and controlled for factors like subject matter, art style, and words per page, minimizing the chance that preferences would be influenced by anything other than causal content.

A group of 48 children, all three or four years old, were selected for the study. A female experimenter read both books to each child. Afterwards, the children answered some basic comprehension questions, and told researchers which book they liked better. Two weeks later, the process was repeated, except that the books were read in reverse order.

The results? Over 40% of the children preferred the causally rich book in both sessions. If left to pure chance, only 25% of the children would go for causality both times – leading researchers to conclude that their hypothesis has some validity.

“We believe this result may be due to children’s natural desire to learn about how the world works,” Shavlik said.

In addition to affirming the causality hypothesis, the study has important implications for childhood literacy. Parents might have better luck getting their child excited about reading if they choose books that explain something. 

“If children do indeed prefer storybooks with causal explanations, adults might seek out more causally rich books to read with children – which might in turn increase the child’s motivation to read”, Shavlik said. In other words, adults can stimulate young minds (and make their own lives easier) by picking books that satisfy children’s natural curiosity.

The researchers say these findings raise important questions about the practical relevance of causality. Does causal richness have an impact on how easily kids acquire information? Can these results be repeated in a more natural setting, such as by recording parents and children in their home?

The authors don’t have answers yet, but they believe their study “lays a solid groundwork” for exploring the questions.

By Renny Simone

MAIN PHOTO: Guangzhou, a city in China’s Guangdong province that is home to a large African immigrant population. SOURCE: stben on Pixabay

A group of African ambassadors in Beijing have written a letter to the Chinese foreign minister, urging the government to take action on xenophobia against African immigrants in China.

The open letter from the ambassadors demands “the cessation of forceful testing, quarantine and other inhuman treatments” used against Africans. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was copied on the letter, according to Reuters.

The ambassadors list several allegations of xenophobic practices, including unlawful evictions, forcible testing and quarantining, and acts of public discrimination against people of African origin.

Most reports have come from Guangzhou, a coastal city in Guangdong province, where a sizable population of West African immigrants has settled in an area now known as “Little Africa”.

“People are not happy”, Maximus Ogbonna, a Nigerian community leader in Guangzhou, told The Washington Post. Ogbonna is in his second forced quarantine after returning from Nigeria, despite having tested negative for coronavirus.

Other reports of discrimination have been shared on social media. 

SupChina described a Chinese-language cartoon published to WeChat with the title, “An illustrated handbook on how to sort foreign trash”. The cartoon targeted ‘foreigners’, especially Africans, for allegedly flouting quarantine guidelines. 

And a twitter video, apparently showing a discriminatory notice posted in a Guangzhou McDonald’s, has prompted an apology from the company, according to the BBC. The notice read, in part, “from now on black people are not allowed to enter the restaurant”.

The international community has responded swiftly to the allegations.

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) also released a statement condemning discrimination against African nationals living in China.

The Chinese embassy in Nigeria initially denied allegations of racism. But a spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry acknowledged the concerns in remarks published on Sunday.

“The foreign ministry will stay in close communication with the Guangdong authorities and continue responding to the African side’s reasonable concerns and legitimate appeals,” said the statement.

Outside of China, instances of xenophobia, ranging from racist TikTok videos to US President Donald Trump’s controversial use of the term “Chinese virus”, have been widely documented. There have also been reports of coronavirus-related deportations of undocumented immigrants from the US, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.

Some commentators are highlighting the political implications of these developments. Mills Soko and Mzukisi Qobo, professors at Wits Business School, have suggested that the reports coming out of Guangzhou may affect China’s influence in Africa.

“They could … fuel a backlash against China and Chinese interests on the continent,” Soko and Qobo wrote in Daily Maverick.

China is expected to decide soon on debt relief for African countries, many of which are asking creditors to freeze or cancel loan payments in light of the economic recession. According to Reuters, China is the largest creditor operating in Africa, where it has extensive commercial interests.

By Renny Simone

MAIN PHOTO: A swarm of desert locusts, taken in 2014 near Satrokala, Madagascar (lwoelbern from Wikimedia Commons)

Nearly a month before sub-Saharan Africa recorded its first coronavirus infection, Somalia declared a national emergency in response to a different natural threat: swarms of desert locusts.

Somalia’s Ministry of Agriculture called the insects “a major threat to Somalia’s fragile food security situation” in a statement reported by the BBC in early February.

Two months later, as governments worldwide focus attention and resources on fighting the coronavirus pandemic, the locust plague has taken a turn for the worse.

The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has warned in its latest report that widespread rains that fell in late March could allow a dramatic increase in locust numbers in East Africa, eastern Yemen and southern Iran in the coming months.

The locust swarms, which feed on crops, represent “an unprecedented threat to food security and livelihoods” in affected nations, it said. Somalia, Kenya, and Ethiopia have been the hardest hit, but other East African nations, as well as parts of the Arabian Peninsula and Southwest Asia, are also at risk.

The African Development Bank recently approved $1.5 million in emergency funding to help control the infestations. A total of nearly $150 million will be required to stem the spread, and there is a significant shortfall, according to a statement released by the African Development Bank Group.

Coronavirus presents additional challenges. International attention has been monopolised by the pandemic, and funding is in short supply. More pressingly, flight restrictions have prevented the delivery of pesticides to affected countries. Some, including Kenya, are rapidly running out of reserve stocks.

“If we fail in the current [regional] control operations, because of lack of pesticides, then we could see four million more people struggle to feed their families,” said Cyril Ferrand, FAO’s head of resilience for Eastern Africa.

“If we don’t have pesticides, our planes cannot fly and people cannot spray and if we are not able to control these swarms, we will have big damage to crops,” Ferrand told Reuters.

The pesticide deficit is another symptom of coronavirus-related travel restrictions, which pose the greatest threat to countries dependent on the delivery of international aid. Some organisations are in the process of negotiating “humanitarian corridors” to make sure necessary aid can be delivered. But in the meantime, Al Jazeera has reported that more than 20 low- and middle-income countries are facing vaccine shortages due to travel restrictions. 

Aid organisations are sounding the alarm.

“While the threat posed by COVID-19 must not be underestimated, if the chaos caused by this pandemic is allowed to curtail ongoing humanitarian assistance, the results will be catastrophic,” Doctors Without Borders warned.

By Renny Simone

MAIN PHOTO: Police Minister General Bheki Cele and other senior members of the police executive conducted an inspection of lockdown operations in Limpopo yesterday. SOURCE: Twitter @SAPoliceService

Police action is killing South Africans nearly as fast as COVID-19, if allegations reported to the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) are to be believed.

Complaints received by the police watchdog implicate the South African Police Service (SAPS) in eight deaths since the start of the nationwide lockdown – only one fewer than the number who have died from the virus itself. 

The release of information about the allegations comes after multiple reports of police brutality during the lockdown. At least three police officers are already facing murder charges for the deaths of South African citizens, according to News24. 

IPID is investigating nearly 40 complaints that have been filed since the start of the lockdown on 27 March. 

These include cases of nonfatal police brutality, some of which have been documented and widely shared on social media. One video, posted to YouTube, purports to show a man being beaten for violating the lockdown. Another, appearing to show policemen firing on a group of protesting healthcare workers with flash grenades and rubber bullets, has been retweeted hundreds of times.

President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed concerns regarding police violence during a coronavirus update delivered on Monday. “We have made it clear that the task of our security personnel is to support, reassure and comfort our people … they must not cause harm to any of our people,” he said.

But some experts, including Andrew Faull of the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria, fear that police violence may escalate an already-dangerous situation.

“If on top of their socio-economic hardship citizens routinely experience or perceive abuse by state officials during the lockdown, it is possible that some may rebel,” Faull wrote for Daily Maverick. “[T]he risks posed by continued, illegitimate state violence … could be as great as those brought by the pandemic.”

Others are asking for patience. In an anonymous op-ed published in Daily Maverick, a police officer described the severe stress law enforcement is under during this crisis, urging citizens to cooperate. “[L]ockdown only works if there is compliance,” the officer wrote. 

The effects of the lockdown on police-citizen relations might be clear only in retrospect. Daneel Knoetze, writing for GroundUp, noted that the present rate of complaint submissions to the IPID is in line with pre-lockdown trends, indicating that the problem predated coronavirus. 

But even if the issue of police violence is old news, Knoetze hopes that its increased publicity will have positive effects – such as an increase in funding for the IPID.

“[P]oliticians used the uniqueness of the lockdown moment to call out abuses by the police,” he wrote. “These calls will ring hollow in time, if they do not lead … to policy interventions to hold the transgressors and police management accountable long after the lockdown has ended.”