It may be too early for hoorah's but the SA Covid-19 trends do appear to have peaked. 

I am not sure if it will persist. Who knows? Now they are also saying that summer won't stop the contagion. 

But summer does bring with it an important immune booster - Vitamin D from sunlight. 

But maybe our extended level 3 lock-down and the recent re-closure of public schools is helping. 

Experts expected an August peak but some regions, like the Eastern Cape, expect to see a doubling of infections in August. 

The Eastern Cape is badly run in every way, so despite being a smaller province its death rate is about to overtake Gauteng. 

But elsewhere recovery rates are at or above the 2/3rds level and new infection rates are slowing. 

Western Cape is definitely moving out of the crisis and that has seen Gauteng overtake it with over 150,000 infections, but low deaths. 

I am not trying to be overly optimistic, but we do need hope even though we have the 5th highest infection totals in the world. 

That said, generally southern hemisphere nations have struggled through winter, so hopefully warming weather is helping us now. 

Other sources of hope are also evident. 

The Rand has strengthened, despite down-rating, to 16.50 to the Dollar, the gold price is near to $2,000 per fine ounce and the JSE has fully recovered. 


Bond interest rates have also fallen to around 7% and inflation is around 2%. First quarter job losses were also small. 

The impact on jobs will yet be seen and the true effect on the economy will soon be reported for the second quarter. 

Also, for unknown reasons, thanks to sanitizing and distancing there has been no flu outbreak this year. 

So, overall, despite a lot of gloom and an impact worse than the 2008 Financial Fallout, we are starting to see green shoots. 

(c) Peter Missing @ me2u2all.blogspot.com