News — covid-19

 In early 2020, when the covid-19 pandemic started in China, and its government promised it was containing the virus, there were multiple cases of racial discrimination reported within the country. Several Africans were being evicted from their homes and harassed while health workers tested for imported infections. There were no statistics to prove foreigners, let alone Africans brought the foreign cases. The Chinese government denied these allegations. However, videos circulating on social media proved otherwise as they showed hundreds of Africans thrown out in the streets. Some considered it a case of xenophobia, while others saw it as China doing its due diligence. What do you think?

Comedian Dave Chappelle says he used to buy weed from Idris Elba back in the day. Appearing on Joe Rogan’s podcast, Chappelle delved into topics like the coronavirus pandemic, Elon Musk hosting SNL, cancel culture and gay rights.

During the podcast, Chapelle started talking about the importance of treating people in the service industry with kindness, since no one knows where such people might end up. Using Hollywood star Elba as an example, Chapelle said: “Idris Elba, the famous actor, used to be a security guard at Caroline’s [comedy club] … I used to buy weed from him.”

British actor, musician and DJ Elba, who was born to immigrant working-class parents, was brought up in east London before finding fame in America. He is best known for playing Nelson Mandela in the biographical film Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (2013), drug trafficker Stringer Bell on the HBO series The Wire, and DCI John Luther on the BBC One series Luther. 

The TV and film star has never shied away from talking about his drug-dealing past. 

In his Saturday Night Live monologue in 2019, Elba talked about his years working as a bouncer at Caroline’s comedy club. 

“Now, this was my night job when I started in this country. This time of year, I would be standing outside freezing my bollocks off. I mean, it was a decent job, though. I made some great contacts. By which I mean, I sold weed,” the Luther star said. 

“I’m not proud of it, it’s just a fact.” 

In a 2013 interview with GQ Magazine, the actor said,”…I was DJ’ing, but I was also pushing bags of weed; I was doing my work. I had to. I know that sounds corny, but this is the truth.”

He said while selling drugs at Carolines, a lot of Black comedians came through, including Chapelle. “All those black comedians, they knew me as a doorman.”

Elba has been nominated four times for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film, winning one and was nominated five times for a Primetime Emmy Award.

Pharmaceutical giants Pfizer asked South Africa, among a few other countries, to accept indemnity clauses in contract proposals for securing Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccines. These clauses would indemnify Pfizer against lawsuits relating to the usage of its vaccines.

South Africa was one of a few middle-income countries that were told to put up assets which “could include federal bank reserves, embassy buildings or military bases”, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ). Pfizer hoped that these countries would bear the costs of lawsuits and damages if vaccine recipients have complications.

The BIJ reported that its interrogations of unredacted draft contracts between Pfizer and two other countries revealed that the pharmaceutical company wanted to protect itself against unfortunate eventualities in the supply chain “including packaging, manufacturing and storage”.

Pfizer, who initially defended the plan to force an indemnity clause has so far reneged on this in their dealings with South Africa. On behalf of his government, South Africa’s Minister of Health, Zweli Mkhize, disclosed last week that his government was “relieved” by this.

“As [a] government, we found ourselves in a precarious position of having to choose between saving our citizens’ lives and risking putting the country’s assets into private companies’ hands,” Mkhize told a parliamentary committee. He pointed out that the proposal had “posed a potential risk to our assets”.

South Africa was a destination of four different vaccine trials, including J&J’s. At the beginning of the year, South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa, who until recently was chairperson of the AU, indicated that his country intended to lead the charge for vaccine equity on behalf of Africa.

South Africa hoped to come to an agreement with Johnson & Johnson to obtain affordable vaccines for the country and others in Africa. But while Johnson & Johnson undertook a trial in the Rainbow Nation, it made no promises of donating or selling vaccines to South Africa or any other country on the continent. J&J is said to begin manufacturing its vaccine in South Africa and will make about 300 million before the end of 2021.

Mahmoud El-Koumi wanted to find a way that his mechanical engineering would bear fruits in Egypt’s management of the coronavirus pandemic. So the Cairo-based technologist thought of how to minimize the contact between healthcare providers – the frontline army against the unseen virus – on one hand, and patients.

So El-Koumi engineered a robot with the specific task of playing a doctor’s assistant. The remote-control robot was named Cira-03, and when Reuters spoke to El-Koumi in December, he reported that Cira-03 was doing exactly as expected. The automaton can test for Covid-19 and take the temperature of patients, at a private hospital in the city of Tanta. where it is being trialed.

El-Koumi explained: “Before starting its mission, the robot receives training to improve its AI. The training is done by a specialist doctor, the AI in this training acts like a human doctor.”

But Cira-03 is not only taking temperatures and carrying out COVID-19 tests. It can detect your echocardiographs as well as X-rays. All of Cira-03’s results can be seen on a small monitor it has for a chest. The robot is built with a human-like face but without arms.

“This robot is specially designed to help the medical staff during Covid-19 times. It is a medical robot capable of multi-tasks, it can deal with patients in their beds, chest scans, fever screening, and face mask detection,” El-Koumi, 27, added. He was also mindful of how humans would have to relate with his creation and that consideration went into Cira-03’s build.

“I tried to make the robot seem more human so that the patient doesn’t fear it. So they don’t feel like a box is walking in on them. There has been a positive response from patients. They saw the robot and weren’t afraid. On the contrary, there is more trust in this because the robot is more precise than humans.”

Egypt has reported nearly 200,000 cases of the COVID-19 infections but the vast number of people – over 150,000 – are well. The country was also the first to roll out a nationwide vaccination program with support from foreign partners such as China and Russia.

Zimbabwe will allow trophy hunters who are willing to pay up to $70,000 per elephant to shoot up to 500 of the beasts in national parks, in a bid intended to help raise money to sustain the conservatories which the cash-strapped government cannot maintain.

The intention was actually put on paper last year, but the COVID-19 pandemic destabilized plans for tourists to travel to the southern African country. However, this year’s southern hemisphere winter – beginning in June – will see trophy hunters from countries such as the United States going to Zimbabwe.

Officials in Zimbabwe are well aware of the backlash this will generate among conservationists and ecotourists. But a spokesperson for the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (ZPWMA), Tinashe Farawo, was quoted by Bloomberg saying: “How do we fund our operations, how do we pay our men and women who spend 20 days in the bush looking after these animals?”

Zimbabwe’s elephant population is more than 100,000. Trophy hunters will be charged between $10,000 and $70,000 depending on the size of an elephant they would like to shoot. This program is also seen as a way of controlling the elephant population that has disturbed towns and farms surrounding national parks. The Bloomberg report says the ZPWMA has registered about 1000 complaints so far this year about elephant destruction to crops. This is compared to about 1,500 in the entirety of 2020.

The country’s plans of utilizing the elephant population to make money are not limited to trophy hunting. in 2019, Zimbabwe was believed to have sold at least 30 young elephants to China as drought hit the country. Park officials were reported to have said proceeds will be used to dig more wells to save other wildlife.

That same year, more than 90 elephants were exported from Zimbabwe to China and Dubai, earning the southern African country $2.7 million.

Apart from Botswana, Zimbabwe holds the largest quantity of elephants in Africa. However, the former has also not been spared criticisms by conservationists who have questioned why Gaborone is allowing trophy hunting again after a five-year ban.

According to Forbes, African-American women are among the fastest group launching and owning businesses. Despite COVID-19 forcing many businesses to close, particularly, Black-owned businesses, African Americans are still winning big.

One such entrepreneur is Tenisha Williams, who is the CEO of Elite Realty Partners, a real estate brokerage firm based in the South Florida area—Miami and Fort Lauderdale. Her firm is the largest Black, woman-owned brokerage in the South Florida area.

Williams’ story is inspirational, braving the pandemic to achieve economic success. Her company raked $100 million in sales within two years. What is more, she and her elite team are not showing any signs of complacency or slowing down. Rather, they are positioning the company to deliver more homes to families.

Williams attributes her success to God’s favor as she could not have managed a thriving business without divine favor. “I cannot attribute the accelerated pace of my business to anything but the favor of God,” she told Sheen Magazine.

“Before I sold one house, I thought of the name ‘Your FAVORED Realtor’, not favorite but favored! It was as if He told me from day one that He was going to favor whatever I touched in this business and order my steps as long as I put in the work and remained faithful. I remember in 2016 telling my former partner, ‘God is going to give us a platform so big because He knows that He can trust us with it.’”

Before venturing into full entrepreneurship, Williams was a county worker but said she did not plan to stay on the job till retirement like her colleagues, who were simply happy to land a position so they could retire and have great benefits. However, it was not until 2017 that she made her final decision not to return to work while she was on a holiday at St. Lucia with her daughter. “While there, I realized that I did not want to go back to work and made up my mind after speaking with my husband,” she said. “From there, two things happened: I found my purpose by loving real estate and made my first 6 figures part-time.”

Williams is more than a CEO. She is also a life coach and uses a chunk of her time to teach, motivate and guide others to achieve their desire goals. Nonetheless, she is sometimes under unimaginable pressure. “Sometimes I cannot sleep at night because my brain will not stop thinking of ways that I can add more value to everyone on the team. I truly am invested in their careers, so I take the responsibility very seriously,” she said.

Williams describes the reality of being the largest Black, woman-owned brokerage in the South Florida area as surreal. She however said there is so much work to be done to change the narrative and diversify the faces in the Miami/Fort Lauderdale area as it pertains to real estate.

The real estate guru considers her firm a “ministry” to agents and customers. Over the years, she has witnessed an overabundance of customers and agents break through various hardships and come out on top with the help of her brokerage, she said. “My private coaching sessions sometimes turn into life-changing sessions for me and them. For example, I have had the opportunity to witness agents who did not sell ONE house at their former brokerages, then come onboard with Elite and become our top producers selling millions in real estate,” she said.

A dope educator in Memphis, Tennessee, with a great memory and enough love for his students, has memorized over 250 personalized handshakes which he uses to welcome each student to class. David Jamison is on a mission to motivate students at Hickory Ridge Elementary School even as they return to in-person class after the long COVID-19 break.

“I’ve always had a great memory growing up and even had a secret handshake with my best friend of 20+ years. I remember what’s important to me.

“My scholars are important to me. This small gesture goes a long way. It creates an atmosphere of love and vulnerability. Allowing students to be completely open with me; even sharing with me troubling encounters that they have at home,” said Jamison to NEWS.

Jamison went viral in 2019 for doing these handshakes with his students and everyone lauded him for his thoughtfulness and effort to make these students feel special. So, for four years, Jamison knows the names of each student and knows which handshake routine goes with who.

To him, it is a sign of respect for each student. After he suffered the virus himself last year, he now has an even greater calling to make the most of each time with his scholars. He believes that one does not need to touch someone physically to make an impact on them.

The welcome back routine for the fifth-grade language arts teacher and his students is now a socially distanced one.

“Around this time last year, the school year was canceled because of Covid,” Jamison, who refers to himself as “The Dope Educator,” wrote alongside a video of the socially distanced greetings on Instagram.

“I remember being asked in an interview last year, ‘would I still welcome my students with customized greetings once they return?’

“My response remains the same, you don’t have to physically touch a child to actually ‘touch’ a child. We don’t focus on what it looks like; we focus on what it can be!”

For Jamison, he wants the kids to see themselves past a test score. He uses these handshakes to show love and motivate them. “When I became an educator, I wanted to create something that they can look at and see that I’m not just about a test score,” he told. “When kids see that they have a personalize greeting they are so excited to come to class every day.”

What’s more, research shows that a young Black child who has had at least one Black male educator increases their chances of attending secondary education, Jamison, who is completing his fourth year in education, told NEWS.

A deal has been reached between pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson and African Union (AU) members states to make 400 million doses of vaccines available to Africa over the course of this year and the next.

J&J announced that the vaccines will be delivered to the African Vaccine Acquisition Trust (AVAT), a special purpose initiative set up to secure vaccines on behalf of African countries. Some 220 million vaccines will be delivered in the third quarter of this year, followed by 180 million in 2022.

The vaccine made by J&J is good for one-shots. As such, the provision by the company will go a long way to make it possible for the AU to reach its target of 60% population inoculation by the year’s end. Africa has about 1.2 billion people and most countries have already started vaccination programs.

South Africa was a destination of four different vaccine trials, including J&J’s. At the beginning of the year, South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa, who until recently was chaiperson of the AU, indicated that his country intended to lead the charge for vaccine equity on behalf of Africa.

South Africa hoped to come to an agreement with Johnson & Johnson to obtain affordable vaccines for the country and others in Africa. But while Johnson & Johnson undertook a trial in the Rainbow Nation, it made no promises of donating or selling vaccines to South Africa or any other country on the continent. J&J is said to begin manufacturing its vaccine in South Africa and will make about 300 million before the end of 2021.

Vaccines for many African countries comes via the COVAX program, a World Health Organization (WHO) initiative intended to ensure an equitable distribution in the face of global competition. Other donations by China and Russia see additions of the Sinopharm and Sputnik V respectively in wide usage.

But speaking after the announcement of the deal, John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. called the addition of J&J “very good programmatically” and revealed that it would likely cost $10 a dose.

President John Magufuli of Tanzania, who has made global news headlines for advocating lax measures in his country in spite of the pandemic, is reportedly in a hospital receiving treatment for a coronavirus infection.

The BBC reported on Wednesday that Magufuli has not made a public appearance in some time, prompting Tanzanians to ask for the whereabouts of their president. However, according to opposition leader Tundu Lissu, the president is on admission in a hospital due to COVID-19, per his (Lissu’s) sources.

Lissu explained that information available to him has it that Magufuli, 61, was flown to Kenya on Monday night but rather quietly. He also added that Magufuli may have suffered a cardiac arrest in his illness.

Nairobi Hospital which is said to be where the Tanzanian leader has been admitted refused to comment on the allegation, the BBC said.

The 53-year-old opposition leader also alleges that Philip Mpango, the Finance Minister who made a public appearance a few weeks ago but was captured on camera coughing unstoppably, has also been admitted at Nairobi Hospital.

Understandable cover of darkness

If Magufuli is truly in a hospital having been infected by the virus, it would be understandable that his treatment is under a cover of darkness. Last year, the ultraconservative leader declared a “victory” of the pandemic because of what he said were the prayers of Tanzanians.

Magufuli’s administration had declared that the country was coronavirus-free. This came after government insisted normal public life would have to go on in spite of suspected increase in cases leading up to the end of last year. Schools remained opened as did churches, the establishments Magufuli credited with the “success” of Tanzania’s fight.

“The corona disease has been eliminated thanks to God,” Magufuli once stated in a speech, apparently because of prayers. The spiritual inclination was not a joke as the government warned the American Embassy in Dar-es-Salaam to stay out of Tanzania’s internal affairs after the American envoy issued a statement in May 2020 claiming that hospitals in the commercial capital were on the verge of collapse due to admitting coronavirus-infected patients.

Magufuli did not only allege foreign conspiracies to undermine his government but also moved to crush faith in Tanzania’s scientific research community. He once stated that “probably, the technicians are also bought to mislead” on infection and mortality rates in the country. The head of the national research unit in charge of understanding Tanzania’s case count and kinds of infection was sacked after his outfit was accused of finding coronavirus in goats and pawpaw.

The government then launched an investigation into “criminal possibility at the national laboratory”. While most African countries placed restrictions on public life, Tanzania did not. Apart from full churches and mosques, stadia were also loaded with soccer fans and continue to be.

John Magufuli, Tanzania’s 61-year-old president, is very much a moralist. He will not apologize for grounding his politics in conservative Christian values and neither is anyone to expect that the former high school teacher would back down.

Magufuli espouses a simplified Aristotelian sense of justice, an equitable distribution to those deserving of good and bad. This notion of justice as fairness and as rightness was integral to his election to the presidency, initially in 2015. It also helped that he marketed himself as an upright Christian man who was very much aware of the biases of his eletorate.

Initially, the man inspired hope, taking his moral politics into rooting out an African problem of rot in the Tanzanian public service. He launched a war on corruption and was unforgiving to those who fed off the labor and mite put in by poor and ordinary Tanzanians. But there were also downsides to Magufuli’s religion-powered politics that saw him make life harder for the LGBTQ+ community in his country as well as propagate the belief that people who employ family planning and birth control are “lazy [people] afraid they will not be able to feed their children”.

Neither of the two unfortunate actions taken by Magufuli can be overlooked, however, treating a deadly pandemic as if is a fight of spirituality and determinedly ruling out scientific measures for saving lives is definitely the lowest point in the presidency of a man with a respectable doctorate in chemistry.

First of all, Magufuli’s administration had declared that the country was coronavirus-free. This came after government insisted normal public life would have to go on in spite of suspected increase in cases leading up to the end of last year. Schools remained opened as did churches, the establishments Magufuli credited with the “success” of Tanzania’s fight.

“The corona disease has been eliminated thanks to God,” Magufuli once stated in a speech, apparently because of the prayers of Tanzanians. The spiritual inclination was not a joke as the government warned the American Embassy in Dar-es-Salaam to stay out of Tanzania’s internal affairs after the American envoy issued a statement in May 2020 claiming that hospitals in the commercial capital were on the verge of collapse due to admitting coronavirus-infected patients.

The US Embassy alleged that coronavirus cases were seriously and intentionally underreported. All that while, Magufuli had been imploring his compatriots to pray and nothing more. Any pressure that came from elements outside Tanzania was deemed adversarial to his government.

Magufuli did not only allege foreign conspiracies to undermine his government but also moved to crush faith in Tanzania’s scientific research community. He once stated that “probably, the technicians are also bought to mislead” on infection and mortality rates in the country. The head of the national research unit in charge of understanding Tanzania’s case count and kinds of infection was sacked after his outfit was accused of finding coronavirus in goats and pawpaw.

The government then launched an investigation into “criminal possibility at the national laboratory”. While most African countries placed restrictions on public life, Tanzania did not. Apart from full churches and mosques, stadia were also loaded with soccer fans and continue to be.

Now, the government is no more sticking to its narrative that COVID-19 has been defeated through prayers. Rather, government authorities are belittling infection rates and advocating alternative remedies including “steam inhalation, and eating fruits and vegetables”, according to Suleiman Jafo, the country’s Minister of Local Governments.

Jafo’s advocacy has actually been sanctioned by Health Minister Dorothy Gwajim, a physician. Gwajim preaches at pressers and on media channels that a concoction involving ginger, lemon, onions and pepper would prevent coronavirus infections.

She maintains that her country has “its own procedure on how to receive any medicines and we do so after we have satisfied ourselves with the product”. For now, Tanzania is rejecting any and all vaccines approved for usage by either the World Health Organization (WHO) or developed countries.

Intriguingly, some government communications give away the impression that authorities are aware of a dire situation. For instance, Magufuli recently accused travelers to Tanzania of “importing a new weird corona”. But there is also a difficulty for a government pursuing propaganda while aiming to force public compliance with preventive measures.

An official of the Health Ministry publicly advised Tanzanians to wear face masks “not because of corona, like some people think, but it’s to prevent respiratory diseases”. The prevention of “respiratory diseases” is the message the Health Ministry is partially running with these days.

While other African countries are working assiduously to procure vaccines while strategically managing infections inland, Tanzania will undoubtedly be behind the curve when the world hopefully nears the light at the end of the tunnel. But obviously, it is within the capacity of a scientist-president to change the impending narrative.

At the peak of the coronavirus pandemic, many people became jobless, especially during the lockdown phase in March when certain businesses had to lay off workers. Twin sisters RaeShawn Middleton and LaShone Middleton are trained chefs from Laurel, Maryland, who lost their respective jobs at a restaurant. Little did they know that one afternoon’s crab cravings would help them launch the only crab delivery service in their vicinity.

Usually, the trick to a successful business is to fill a market gap. In the case of the Middleton sisters, there were no eateries offering crab delivery services in their community so, with their experience as chefs, they jumped at the idea to start their own crab delivery service, R&L Crab Company.

The twins were at brunch one day when they craved steamed crabs cooked to perfection and at the same time, they did not feel like moving out to go and grab any. That was when the idea struck them. Maybe they did not need to drive out to get them, and many people might be feeling the same way and yet would want to savor the crabs from the comfort of their homes.

Being trained chefs who grew up on crabs came as an added advantage when the twins decided to make a business out of it, WJLA reported.

To mitigate the spread of the virus, restaurants were shut down and only takeout shops could operate with little staff. The Middleton twins decided to cook from their kitchen and deliver the crabs themselves.

They began doing the groundwork to launch their business. According to LaShone, they needed to make sure they had items that they would need, including delivery bags. Then it was about letting people know the services they intend providing by creating an Instagram account and designing flyers to be put up in their neighborhood.

The fear of the unknown always makes people fret about a lot of things and LaShone was sure scared of people’s reaction to their new venture.

“I was, like, shaking. I was, like, so nervous ’cause I was like, this is ridiculous. Like, how am I going to – I’m not going to start a business.”

“We went home that day and started making flyers,” La said. “We were shocked to get our very first order that day.”

All the while, the pair forgot one of the most essential things in being an entrepreneur — the pricing of the crabs. It came to their attention the moment an order came while they were sharing fliers. The steamed crabs were priced at $75 for the big ones. The average price on the market is $99 but being new, they needed to win over their customer base, plus their pricing comes with the delivery which makes their services stand out.

“We deliver everything ourselves, we cook everything ourselves, and when we have 20 orders, we split it amongst the two of us.”

The Middletons schedule deliveries from Thursdays to Sundays and they get about 10 orders per week with some ordering about 60 extra-large crabs in one order. With crab season coming up in March, the twins are poised for the orders that might come their way.

RaeShawn and LaShone are looking to expand their venture by saving up to purchase a food truck and sign on to already existing delivery services like Postmates to cater for big orders.

At the moment, all the crabs are made to order and none of them is reheated. The twins are also exploring the concept of “ghost kitchen” where they use the kitchens of restaurants around town to cook the crabs before deliveries.

With no prior knowledge on how to run a business, the pair are grateful the pandemic gave them the push to be business owners and now they want to share their failures and successes on this new journey to inspire others by writing a book.

“We made a lot of mistakes and are still learning as we go but I can say I know how to start a business and it may not be a traditional way, but I don’t think there’s a traditional way to do anything.”

Admittedly, it is terrifying to start a business in the midst of the pandemic but per NPR, the U.S. Census Bureau says Americans are launching start-ups at the fastest rate in more than a decade.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19 across the globe and particularly in America, Black businesses have been found to be the hardest hit. Also, COVID-19 has delayed the opening of many Black businesses, thereby affecting the economic power in the Black community.

Despite the intensity of COVID-19 in the United States and its consequences on the ability of people to continue with business operations and raising new businesses, two Houston brothers have defied all odds to open the city’s newest Black-owned coffee shop called Day 6 Coffee Company.

Day 6 Coffee Company, founded by Ricardo “RJ” and Ian Wilson, has a divine connotation, driving its foundation from the biblical word of God. According to Ricardo, it was founded on the Bible verse, Genesis 1:31, that God created coffee.

“On the sixth day, God gave us coffee and so much more,” he explained, according to Chron. “Although plants, trees, and animals were created on the third day, God actually ‘gave’ us those creations when he created us on the sixth day. And the sixth day is said to be when God finished his creations.”

Besides the divinity informing the naming of the coffee shop, the establishment of the company is in part a tribute to their late brother whose dream was to open a restaurant.

“One of my brother’s dreams was to open a restaurant. RJ and I and our family decided that we would fulfill his dream, firstly with me taking up the mantle as a chef and then ultimately using Day 6 Coffee Co as a stepping stone into making our mark in the food industry,” Ian said.

The coffee shop, located at 910 Prairie Street, also offers a range of flavors, including Texas latte, cheesecake latte and pumpkin latte. In addition, the menu includes items such as boudin kolache, brisket kolache, florentine quiche, cheesecakes and sandwiches.

Ricardo said he learned how to make coffee while he was studying in Barcelona. He was introduced to it by his house mother as she prepared coffee for the family on a daily basis.

“Waking up each morning to the smell of coffee with the combination of watching the sunrise was meditative and spiritual. We want everyone to have that same experience when drinking our coffee,” he said.

Although the coffee shop is less than two months old, it has become one of the most famous beverage shops in Houston. Its first day of operation was an instant hit and has since recorded a respectable stream of patronage.

“We want to be known for providing that type of energy,” Ricardo said. “A business and networking kind of environment. When we provide value to others, others provide value to us.”