The Covid threat is flaring again. While we recorded only 210 new Covid-19 cases and seven deaths in SA on Monday, this morning New Zealand, once the poster child for stamping out the virus, registered the highest number of daily cases since the pandemic began last year amid a spread of the Delta variant in its biggest city Auckland. And in the UK, a surge in cases has sparked a call for a probe into a mutation of the Delta variant just as the country started opening its border to accept travellers from more countries.
In the US, former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s death from Covid-19 complications despite being fully vaccinated, has shone a high-profile spotlight on what has been termed a rare phenomenon.
According to Bloomberg, the available data show that such deaths are exceptionally rare. Out of the more than 187 million people who had been fully vaccinated in the US as of October 12, 7,178 or 0.004%, had died from a breakthrough infection. Of that group, 85% were over the age of 65. Powell was 84 and was also treated for cancer, which likely compromised his immune system.
Back home, Business Leadership South Africa chief executive, Busi Mavuso, has called for an end to work from home, irrespective of whether level 1 regulations still require employers to enable employees to work remotely. “This is a regulation whose time has come – the productivity impact and loss of skills transfer particularly to junior employees increasingly trumps any purported health benefit,” she wrote in her weekly open letter.
But it is not that simple. Our labour laws are complicated and our vaccination rates are still very low as we prepare for a fourth wave – to date 20 million shots have been administered and just over 27% of the adult population are vaccinated, with take-up rates slowing, according to Mavusa.
It’s clear, to prevent hurting our fragile labour force more and beat the fourth wave we need to ramp up our vaccination drastically.
Meanwhile, in the markets, the rand strengthened to below R14.60 against the US dollar as risk-on sentiment returns and the dollar continues to slide. “With not much data out this week, our local CPI for September should not move the market too much, and we could expect the rand to continue tracking the move on the dollar,” comments TreasuryONE. The local unit was trading at R14.59/$ at last count.
Here’s a roundup of the world’s top and most interesting headlines:
SA Business
Netflix price increases for South Africa – MyBroadband
Steinhoff pair face trial over alleged $1.7bn fraud – Bloomberg
Shoprite CEO paid almost R30 million – an increase of 12% – Fin24
Global Business
Supply-crunch inflation gives central banks an unfixable problem – Bloomberg
Apple finally listened to the pros – The Verge
Amazon’s Jeff Bezos ‘may have lied to Congress’ – BBC News
Markets
Asian markets rally as earnings divert from inflation worry – AFP
Bitcoin bull Lee says Futures ETF may attract $50 billion in first year – Bloomberg
Oil prices remain steady after reaching high – Investing.com
Opinion/In-Depth
UPL disaster: Questions emerge over ‘missing’ toxic chemical results and accuracy of air pollution maps – Daily Maverick
Why Christmas could be stuck in a shipping container – BBC News
Concrete: the world’s 3rd largest CO2 emitter – AFP
Videos
Chip shortages continue to crunch auto manufacturers – AusBiz
Global supply chain backlog threatens availability of goods over holiday season – CBC
Everything Apple revealed at its October event – Mashable
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