Covid-19 lockdown to level 3 – soon, school in June, SA faces ‘humanitarian crisis’; SA Express

By Jackie Cameron

• As South Africa enters its 55th day in lockdown, government has announced plans to open schools in June, starting with grades 7 and 12. Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga says this includes independent and public ordinary schools in metropolitan areas. There are plans to provide social and mental support. And Health Department Acting Director General Anban Pillay says many parts of the country could move to alert level 3 of the lockdown as early as this week. Speaking to SAfm, Pillay says the hope is that "we would have some changes this week and that we would move to lower levels of restrictions in many parts of the country". Rural areas have had a low Covid-19 infection rate, with Pillay adding: "Those areas can have more normal activities with less restrictions," he said.
• Gauteng will move to a less restrictive lockdown level at the beginning of June, premier David Makhura told a virtual sitting of the Gauteng provincial legislature, says BusinessLive. And provincial leaders in the Western Cape – which has the highest rate of Covid-19 infections – say that province is also ready to ease restrictions to level 3. Preparations include extra temporary hospitals to accommodate the ill. SA has been under a state of disaster for more than two months, with huge criticism about strict regulations, including a ban on the sale of tobacco and alcohol and limited exercise hours. The country has a relatively low death rate of less than 300 and there are warnings from economists that Covid-19 could be devastating for the country's growth and employment rates.
• Between 900,000 and 2m jobs will be lost in Gauteng as a result of the Covid-19 shutdown. That's the stark projection from Gauteng premier David Makhura who is reported, by BusinessLive, as saying that the economic effect of Covid-19 would be like that experienced during the Great Depression in 1929. More than 600,000 people in Gauteng have received help in the form of food parcels from the provincial government since the lockdown was imposed at the end of March. 
• Covid-19 containment is taking its toll particularly on the poorest South africans. This has been underscored by Premier Alan Winde, who says that the Western Cape's call centre is receiving a staggering 14,000 calls a day from desperate people. This is up from about 400 a day. He says: "The Hard Lockdown has threatened the well-being and livelihoods of millions of people. This is a real and imminent threat to the health of our people." Over 1,2 million meals have been provided to children across the Western Cape through our emergency school feeding programme. Thousands of food parcels have been delivered and municipalities have been trying to find accommodation for homeless people. For more on the Covid-19 pandemic, listen to Inside Covid-19 with Alec Hogg.
• SA Express is set to be the first state-owned enterprise to be abandoned by a cash-strapped government. The airline owes creditors more than R2bn. However, there is good news for Comair, whose administrators say it has "reasonable prospects" of surviving, reports Reuters. Comair, which operates the local British Airways franchise and budget airline kulula.com, is in "business rescue" as is SAA. Smaller state airline SA Express has been placed under "provisional liquidation". Its employees have been told they will not be paid and that they must not return to work, as their contracts of employment were suspended due to the provisional liquidation of the embattled state-owned airline, according to BusinessLive.