OPINION

2020-05-17 06:00 It is important to note that the Minister should consult (not to reach consensus) and that she authorises the issue of directions. During a state of disaster, she, therefore, does have extensive powers, writes Elmien du Plessis.Previously I argued that a state of emergency should have been called to order the lockdown, since…

2020-05-15 10:25 South Africa needs to accept that it is not on a unique trajectory. The virus cannot be eliminated. The country needs to move away from a hard lockdown, writes Imraan Valodia, Alex van den Heever, Lucy Allais, Martin Veller, Shabir Madhi and Willem Daniel Francois Venter.Decision-making at the early stages of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic (the…

GroundUp to explain the measures being taken to protect residents. The author is a general practitioner with a particular interest in care for the elderly.Care homes for older people are most at risk of Covid-19 deaths. We have seen this in Europe and North America. In one widely publicised case, 34 out of 101 infected residents in an…

2020-05-14 12:00 The South African government’s declaration of the state of disaster presents the country with an unprecedented opportunity for all of us to re-imagine the social, economic, cultural and political dimensions of our society as a whole, writes Mukovhe Morris Masutha.The implications of British American Tobacco’s aborted attempt to bully Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and the…

The documentary on everyone’s lips, ESPN's The Last Dance, an anthology of Michael Jordan's last NBA season with the Chicago Bulls, brought up something interesting about the structural functionalism that exists between black people and black sports stars.It is a social contract that successful black people enter with their community, whereupon certain expectations are showered…