{"id":408113,"date":"2020-06-17T07:33:50","date_gmt":"2020-06-17T05:33:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=408113"},"modified":"2020-06-17T07:48:18","modified_gmt":"2020-06-17T05:48:18","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-819","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/408113\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-819\/","title":{"rendered":"5 important things happening in South Africa today"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s what is happening in and affecting South Africa today:<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Coronavirus<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ecdc.europa.eu\/en\/geographical-distribution-2019-ncov-cases\">Global<\/a> cases of Covid-19 have hit the 8 million mark, while the death toll has pushed past 436,000. In <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/408077\/76334-confirmed-coronavirus-cases-in-south-africa-as-deaths-climb-to-1625\/\">South Africa<\/a> confirmed cases are now at 76,334, with deaths up to 1,625. Recoveries have climbed to 42,063, leaving the country with 32,646 active cases.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>SAA<\/strong>: The final business rescue plan for SAA proposed that not only should pay over R10 billion to help restructure the company, but also to keep supporting it until 2024. The plan, which was released on Tuesday evening, puts the state\u2019s bill for settling SAA\u2019s current liabilities and funding the restructured airline at R26.7 billion. This also includes steep job cuts, with the &#8216;new&#8217; SAA only retaining 1,000 of its almost 5,000 employees. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.moneyweb.co.za\/news\/south-africa\/government-expected-to-support-saa-restructured-until-2024\/\">Moneyweb<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Covid breakthrough<\/strong>: A steroid has been shown to reduce the risk of death in serious Covid-19 cases, and has been described as a &#8216;breakthrough&#8217; in the global push to find a vaccine for the virus. The drug, dexamethasone, was used on more than 2,000 severely ill Covid-19 patients, and preliminary results showed that it reduced severity in 35% of them. The drug is an anti-inflammatory, usually used to treat allergic reactions as well as rheumatoid arthritis and asthma. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.enca.com\/news\/steroid-reduces-death-risk-severe-virus-cases\">ENCA<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Power warning<\/strong>: The recent cold front that has swept South Africa is exacerbating issues like illegal connections and the known maintenance issues at Eskom &#8211; putting increased pressure on the grid. Eskom this week put out a red alert over power for the first time in months, warning customers that load on the grid was critical. Meanwhile, tampering in areas like Soweto, Cosmo City, Ivory Park and Diepsloot are also leading to prolonged interruptions, it said. [<a href=\"https:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2020\/06\/17\/cold-weather-illegal-connections-add-pressure-to-eskom-power-grid\">EWN<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Trust<\/strong>: New research shows that, globally, people are losing trust in news media, as worries over &#8216;fake news&#8217; and misinformation remain high. Only 38% of people say they trust the news most of the time, down from 46% recorded last year. In South Africa 48% of people said they trusted the news &#8211; though trust for specific brands (ie, trusted news sources) remains high. South Africans also generally do not trust social media as a news platform, the research showed. [<a href=\"https:\/\/mg.co.za\/coronavirus-essentials\/2020-06-16-fake-news-fears-as-covid-19-highlights-the-dangers-of-misinformation\/\">Mail &amp; Guardian<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Markets<\/strong>: The South African rand tumbled on this week as investors fled to safe-haven assets on fears of a second wave of global coronavirus infections. China\u2019s capital Beijing has recorded dozens of new cases of the novel coronavirus in recent days, all linked to a major wholesale food market, sparking fears that a resurgence could hamper a global economic recovery. On Wednesday, the rand was at R17.19 to the dollar, R21.61 to the pound and R19.39 to the euro. Commentary by Reuters. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">XE<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SAA&#8217;s final rescue plan means more bailouts and long-term support from government; new breakthrough in Covid-19 treatment could reduce fatalities; Eskom warns that cold weather and increased illegal connections are putting pressure on the grid; and new research into news consumption shows people have trust issues with news media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":282908,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-408113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408113"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":408153,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408113\/revisions\/408153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}