We are now heading into the seventh week of Lockdown. Tempers are fraying. Twitter is a toxic cesspit and finger pointing has become so endemic that hospital emergency rooms might end up with more repetitive stress injuries than actual COVID-19 cases.
Maybe Mthembu was on to something when he said vibrators instead of ventilators
South Africans had a good belly laugh this week when Minister in the Presidency Jackson Mthembu had an unfortunate malapropism, mixing up vibrators with ventilators. He had been addressing a press briefing on Sunday the government’s preparedness to deal with the peak of the COVID-19 epidemic, when he got the two confused.
Covid-19 donations: Isolating sharks from the Good Samaritans
Covid-19 is showing us the world in all its wonder and horror – often at the same time. Britain has been totally agog at a 99-year-old World War II veteran walking around his home 100 times before he turned 100 to raise money for the country’s beleaguered National Health Service.
Kudos to SA’s Covid-19 superhero who blew the bulls**t right out of the room
We are a country that loves its superheroes. We always expect someone to swoop in and rescue us just like in the comics. For many that’s become Cyril Ramaphosa and before him, certainly Nelson Mandela. But there’s also a huge fan following for the arch villains, if Jacob Zuma’s 78th birthday on Sunday is any gauge.
Cele will arrest the Easter bunny and lovers at midnight
The Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy are essential workers during the COVID-19 crisis. The South African government’s door-to-door screening for the virus is a ploy to decimate the population. President Cyril Ramaphosa is in cahoots with billionaire Bill Gates via Trevor Noah to use COVID-19 to develop a vaccine for the world – and get richer.
Safety muses, nanny killjoys: you’ve got to be kitting!
We are now officially in Week 2 of the 21-Day lockdown. It’s a week since you could last buy liquor – or cigarettes. But apart from that, the world hasn’t actually come to an end.
Coronavirus lockdown – Ramaphosa:2 South Africa:0
Cometh the hour, cometh the man says the old proverb and Cyril Matamela Ramaphosa has certainly proved that with a second master class in statesmanship in just over a week.
Keep calm and keep the economy going
On Sunday night President Cyril Ramaphosa delivered the performance of his career to date. The 90-minute delay beforehand did threaten to eclipse the announcement, but in the end the man lampooned for having no backbone had a TV moment that was second only to Nelson Mandela in 1992.
Sane-tise to keep from catching the mania contagion
La Dolca Vita took a body blow earlier this week after the Italian government extended its novel Coronavirus Covid 19 quarantine of part of the north of the country to the entire nation. You can say what you like about the Italians, there have been no half measures; the schools were closed, then the big soccer fixtures were played but to empty stadia, finally there was a lockdown on movement until April 4.
Coronavirus – not something to be ‘sneezed at’
Plagues and pestilence are no laughing matter – they’re certainly not to be sneezed at – but it’s difficult not to wonder if there isn’t just a hint of hysterical giddiness (and hypocrisy) about the Coronavirus sweeping the globe.
Kevin Ritchie 