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The lockdown caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19) has not stopped non-profit organisation Childline South Africa and its 86 counsellors from assisting children and families calling in to seek help.

Childline provides a 24-hour, toll-free telephone counselling service in all nine provinces. Since the start of lockdown, the organisation has received an increased number of calls.

It is cruel and insensitive for employers to not pay their employees after receiving funds from the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) COVID-19 Temporary Employer/Employee Relief Scheme.

This practice has been condemned by the Minister of Employment and Labour Thulas Nxesi.

The Free State Digital Creative Festival brought poetry and visual and digital arts together in a virtual exhibition.

Artists in the Free State have made the best of enforced social distancing, brought about by the coronavirus (COVID-19), for the Free State Digital Creative Festival.

The aim of the festival is to raise awareness about COVID-19, by fusing the work of artists such as Mpho Thulo, a poet  and Luis Kruger, a digital artist. 

A substantial injection of cash is bolstering government’s health response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis.

Government pays out R3.3 billion in COVID-19 UIF TERS claims by the end of April. 

Employees of Mighty Comms in Midrand, near Johannesburg, received a portion of their salaries despite the company not being fully operational during the nationwide lockdown. 

This is thanks to the Temporary Employer-Employee Relief Scheme (TERS) for COVID-19, offered by the Department of Employment and Labour through the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF). 

Finance Minister Tito Mboweni recently briefed the nation on government’s coordinated economic and financial response to the coronavirus (COVID-19), confirming that National Treasury and the South African Reserve Bank worked together on a set of responses to the crisis. 

There are five main components to government’s economic response, namely;

Cuban doctors are set to bolster South Africa’s COVID-19 fight.

South Africa is intensifying its efforts to curb the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) with assistance from 217 Cuban doctors. 

The doctors, who arrived in South Africa recently, bring expertise in the fields of epidemiology, biostatistics and public health. 

These are historic times, with life as we know it in a state of flux. It is important that people keep abreast of all developments so that they can adhere to lockdown restrictions and keep themselves safe – but to do this, they need to know the difference between real and fake news.

Fake news is based on information that is not correct. It is often created by individuals who want to spread fear and panic, or by people who believe in theories that are not based on any scientific fact.