South Africa is the first country in the world to allow an illegal brand to become its top-selling cigarette.

More than 600 of the nation’s physicians sent a letter to President Trump this week calling the coronavirus shutdowns a “mass casualty incident” with “exponentially growing negative health consequences” to millions of non COVID patients.

This week, I interviewed a brilliant mathematician, who has agreed to provide a witness statement for the Grand Jury investigation into allegations that there is evidence that the UK government has committed pandemic fraud.

Get to know PANDA. Brilliant logic that throws all the rubbish scaremongering theories that turns us into sheeple out the window.

We failed to make good use of the lockdown. Maintaining it now is “suicidal for South Africa”, warns Prof Alex van den Heever.

The Freedom Front Plus (FF Plus) have announced that they will be going to war against what they feel are unfair selection criteria for COVID-19 relief grants, with successful candidates required to be Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) compliant.

Black Economic Empowerment has not added any value to the South African economy and should be scrapped and replaced with a more integrated business development policy, according to political economist Moeletsi Mbeki.

A study of autopsy findings of the first 12 patients who died of COVID-19 in a hospital in Hamburg, Germany, has found that 7 (58%) of them had undiagnosed deep vein thrombosis, suggesting that the virus may cause abnormal blood clotting.

RW Johnson writes on how the SACP has been staking out a position against IMF-style reform.

Proponents of BEE, or any kind of race-based affirmative action, face serious challenges from the Covid-19 pandemic. In this crisis, they can insist on using race as a proxy for disadvantage and on applying race-based regulations to supply chains and procurement serving the relief effort; or they say that for now both the beneficiaries and distributors of Covid-19 relief are to be judged by means and needs alone irrespective of race, as a strictly temporary exception. Neither option is likely to work for very long.

Imperial finally released a derivative of Ferguson’s code. I figured I’d do a review of it and send you some of the things I noticed. I don’t know your background so apologies if some of this is pitched at the wrong level.

If you pay you will have a criminal record, when in many cases your legal rights have in fact been violated.

When he was diagnosed with COVID-19, Andre Bergmann knew exactly where he wanted to be treated: the Bethanien hospital lung clinic in Moers, near his home in northwestern Germany.

Some members of the council have publicly criticised the government on the continued lockdown, saying it had no basis in science and should be lifted.

Only major economic reform capable of generating investment, growth, jobs and rising living standards will save the African National Congress (ANC) from electoral defeat, writes Frans Cronje.

Please note this outrageously inflated statistical model employed by SACEMA at the time. No one has ever officially backed down from these clearly unscientific numbers that has still not been proved. Apparently this data played a significant role when our constitutionally challenged command council made their decision to shut South Africa down. Read those numbers carefully and then compare that to what Joe Public has known since late March. If the decision to shut down South Africa was really based on this, then we need to know whether the government’s position has shifted, and to where it has shifted, if it has indeed shifted. What we do know is that the government seems to cherry pick data to suit their narrative. When will we know which model they follow? In the mean time let’s find Alice in Wonderland.

Retired judge Rex van Schalkwyk, underscores in this powerful article, the actual incidence of deaths is probably a very small percentage of those infected because many people will have Covid-19, or have had it, and no-one has noticed. Van Schalkwyk looks at this figure as one of the arguments why the reasons for strict lockdown no longer hold.

This too shall pass, and when it does we need a thoughtful, rational national debate about drafting emergency powers for future crises.

Dr Glenda Gray, a member of the Ministerial Advisory Committee (MAC) and chairperson of the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC), said the lockdown should be eradicated completely, and that non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI), such as handwashing, wearing masks, social distancing and prohibitions on gatherings, should be put in place.

President Cyril Ramaphosa and his executive technocracy, facing off against a Soviet of Fools — is that the appropriate collective noun? — has afforded himself seven weeks to deal with steadily increasing Covid-19 infection rates. He’s done so cosseted in an atmosphere of deep secrecy and anti-democratic tendencies. Whether you’re pro-lockdown or anti-lockdown—let’s be honest, there is no actual lockdown—fear and hatred are starting to take over. Ramaphosa, who is a (sort of) elected official, needs to start answering some questions.