Daily Insider: It’s high time we dispatched Covid Fear and had some fun again

by

START YOUR MORNING BY LISTENING TO TODAY’S BIZNEWS BREAKFAST BRIEFING PODCAST – Stocks end strongly, making July best month since April 2020; Arcelor Mittal’s appeal for investors; Crypto back in favour; China fears property-driven social unrest

(If you’re struggling to access BBB via Spotify of iTunes, an audio-only version is also available on the BizNewsTV channel on YouTube). 

Catch up with the latest on BizNews.com

NB: Getting this newsletter second hand? Click here for your own copy. It’s free and takes under a minute.

It’s high time we dispatched Covid Fear and had some fun again

So, 79-year-old Joe Biden twice contracted Covid-19 last month and never missed a day’s work. The second infection was so mild it was only picked up through a test to double check the previous one had ended. If that’s not enough evidence the pandemic is over, what is?

Unfortunately, the return-to-normality message doesn’t appear to have permeated Sunny South Africa. On Friday evening we took our visiting niece for dinner and a show at Sandton Square. Kate Normington was excellent. The audience, pitifully small.

It was a similar experience a week before when my pal Guy treated us to front row seats at the excellent Alan Committie’s brief stint at Emperor’s Palace. SA’s smut-free, high-quality comedian was in cracking form. Again, the audience barely filled a quarter of the theatre. 

Given the pandemic is well and truly over and considering how much SA’s world class artistes like Kate, Alan and others suffered during lockdowns, surely it’s time to throw off irrational fears and show them some support? And have some fun in the process.

WATCH: The link between depression and serotonin, that depression was caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, was first posited in the 1960s. To this day, this hypothesis has reigned supreme as scientific fact with, perhaps, one of the most significant consequences being the widespread use of antidepressants. Earlier this month, this serotonin hypothesis of depression, which had been accepted as an unchallenged scientific construct for approximately six decades, was turned on its head by a UCL study published in the Molecular Psychiatry Journal. This study, which found no convincing evidence that depression is connected with low serotonin, let alone caused by it, has sent shock waves throughout the psychiatric community. To explore the implications of these findings, BizNews spoke to Dr Joanna Moncrieff, the principal investigator in this groundbreaking study. What followed was a fascinating discussion, the gravity of which cannot yet be quantified.

UPCOMING EVENTS – SIGN UP NOW 

BizNews Conference – August 30 to Sept 3

All the rooms at Champagne Sports Resort are now allocated. But there are other accommodation options in the Valley which work well with the Day Pass option introduced for the first time. So if you want to spend four days with Paul O’Sullivan, RW Johnson, Rob Hersov, Mavuso Msimang, Piet Viljoen and our other speakers, click here for all the details and to register your interest.

To receive the Daily Insider every weekday at 6am in your inbox click here. You can also sign up to the weekend’s BizNews Digest for a wrap of the best content BizNews has to offer, for a leisurely Saturday read.

Visited 275 times, 1 visit(s) today

BizNews