MW CEO Oliver Zipse announced that the carmaker’s Rosslyn Plant in Gauteng will be shutdown to ‘to protect employees and their families and to support society’ in its fight against the coronavirus.

Zipse said: “Since yesterday (17 March), we began to shut down our European and Rosslyn automotive plants, which will close by the end of the week. The interruption of production for the mentioned plants is currently planned to run until April 19.”

BMW has been building the X3 at Plant Rosslyn since 2018, it was previously manufacturing the popular 3-Series sedan. The facility has a maximum annual capacity of 76 000 units.

Zipse says the pandemic will affect the demand for non-essential items. “In light of this, we have already temporarily closed the first dealerships in Europe. Demand for cars, like many other goods, will decrease significantly, Zipse said at BMW Annual Accounts Press Conference.

You are a responsible citizen, actively limiting the spread of the coronavirus to vulnerable and older people. You are saving lives.

This column is about people with options who selfishly choose not to heed the call for behavioural change during one of the greatest crises of our lifetime. We all know a few of them.

Maybe it is you.

Do not go to the office if you don’t have to. Stay away from groups of people. Cancel events and functions.

But the selfish continue as if nothing in the world has changed.

I’ve heard of many companies this week that did not allow their staff to work from home, even if it was perfectly feasible to do so.

The technology to conduct most of your business from home for office workers is here, available and mostly free.

There is simply no excuse to insist that all your staff should come to the office each day where one of you may infect everyone with Covid-19.

And if you are old-school and too stubborn to change your ways, at least allow your colleagues to work from home and don’t drag them down with you (cough-cough).

Our numbers are growing and despite the best efforts of the government to control the outbreak of Covid-19, it will be up to South Africans to decide the extent of the public health crisis we will face when thousands of citizen suddenly need oxygen.

This is not the time to be selfish or stubborn.

It will be a real shame if it took a state of emergency to force all South Africans to toe the line in this moment of crisis.

 

Disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, US media reported Sunday.

Weinstein, 68, is in prison in northern New York state after being sentenced to 23 years in jail for rape and sexual assault.

The fallen film producer’s diagnosis was first reported Sunday evening by local paper theWeinstein’s spokespeople have declined to comment to US media on the subject.

The New York state Department of Corrections did not respond when contacted by AFP for confirmation of the reports.

Weinstein was transferred Wednesday to a prison near Buffalo, 350 miles (560 kilometers) northwest of New York City.

Prior to his transfer, he stayed at Rikers Island prison and a Manhattan hospital, where he was treated for chest pains.

Crowded US prisons have the potential to become hotbeds for coronavirus infections. Last week, guards at Rikers and New York’s Sing Sing prison tested positive for the virus, local media reported.

As of Sunday, the virus has killed 417 people in the US out of more than 33 000 cases, according to a tracker managed by Johns Hopkins University.early 90 women, including Angelina Jolie and Salma Hayek, have leveled sexual misconduct allegations against Weinstein, the Oscar-winning producer of Shakespeare in Love and numerous other critical and box office hits

ou might not know that you have it

Our symptoms differed vastly. My one child was desperately ill. She ran a very high fever for about four days, developed a bad cough and became very short of breath.

For all of us it started with diarrhoea and then we bizarrely lost our sense of taste and smell.

However, for my son and I it felt more like a very bad head cold.

We never had a fever but felt extreme exhaustion, had sore throats and tight chests.

Given the severity of my daughter’s symptoms, we knew that she was likely to have contracted the Covid-19 virus even before it was confirmed. However, if it wasn’t for her and of course the public awareness education, we would have assumed that we only had bad colds.

So this is the good news: for most people it will only feel like a head cold. But it is also the bad news. You can have it and not even know it and by not distancing yourself from others you will infect other people who are not as strong as you and might die from it.

My daughter was very run down when she contracted it and thus her symptoms were severe – despite being younger than 30 years of age. My son and I were healthier and have got through it relatively easily.

In our country where millions of people have compromised immune systems, this epidemic will make them VERY, VERY ill and many will die if it reaches them.Avoid big gatherings

Our best guess is that we contracted it at a wedding on 12 March (three days before the president’s announcement), with a large group of foreign guests in attendance. Importantly, as far as we know no one had any symptoms at the time.

Given how infectious Covid-19 is, we had to inform all the guests who also had to go into isolation as soon as we got sick to prevent any further spread.

From international experience we know that this disease spreads fast. At the time of our event there were only a handful of confirmed cases in South Africa and no restrictions were yet in place.

A week later the numbers have jumped exponentially and it will undoubtedly continue to grow unless people start taking it seriously and like ourselves and our guests, isolate.

It doesn’t matter who ‘gave’ it to you

Although virologists and the government want to be able to trace the epidemic, it makes very little sense on a personal level to try and figure out where you got it.

In our case there are hundreds of possibilities. We have also immediately experienced how panic can make people deeply intolerant. It seems there is only one thing that spreads faster than the virus and that is false news and rumours about it.

The minister of health said a few days ago that 60% of the population is likely to contract the virus. The problem is that given the panic and misinformation on social media, there are already stories of people who wore masks being thrown off taxis and suspected cases being threatened with violence.

We know how misinformation and panic in the early stages of the HIV pandemic caused the deaths of many people – not by the virus, but by people killing themWhat doesn’t kill us makes us stronger

We have to stand together as a country to fight this. Therefore, whilst we have to isolate, we also have to care deeply about all our fellow citizens. Perhaps we should rather start talking about physical distancing and social cohesion.

This virus does not discriminate between race, class or gender. There is nowhere in the world to flee to, nowhere to hide. We are inextricably bound together in this fight.

How each one of us behaves in the next few weeks will determine if and to what extent we will still have an economy, social cohesion and peace once this epidemic is over. As South Africans we have to immediately pay attention, do the right thing and help each other.

This is not about trying to see how we can “cheat” the government’s regulations by ordering more drinks just before 6 pm or still getting together or (yes, Minister Zulu) strolling around Melrose Arch on shopping expeditions.

It is about the survival of our nation.

The wholesaler is giving care packages away to people over the age of 60, to try and help them protect themselves against the coronavirus pandemic.

Each care packet contains a bottle of liquid hand soap, a bottle of hand sanitiser, a bar of Dettol soap, a pair of gloves and a mask.

Businessman Abduragmaan Mohamed told News24 that he decided to help, were he could, in these trying times.

“I decided that I wanted to do something for my community. Because the people that will suffer the most are the elderly,” Mohamed explained.

He estimates that some 1 000 people came to collect packages on Wednesday and Thursday, with some coming from as far as Durbanville and Milnerton.

The local businessman has vowed to keep handing out the care packages “for asOne pensioner, was ecstatic after receiving her care package.

“I want to thank Mr Cheap for going the extra mile for the pensioners,” Charlotte de la Cruz said.

“Many of us can’t afford this. Some of us can’t even afford a piece of cheese. Products like these won’t be on our shopping list,” she added.

Everyone I had contact with I had to call and explain: “Hi (name). My test result for Corona has unfortunately come back positive. This means you will need to go into self-quarantine for 14 days.

”I was not in self-quarantine for a few hours on the day I returned from my overseas trip. The result was that more than 20 people and their families from my office needed to self-quarantine. The whole school closed down. The waiter at the restaurant we went for an early dinner had to go into self-quarantine. I had to call parents of the children whom I had picked up from school that day. They also run their own businesses, and are now living in self-quarantine.

The worst was the phone call to our nanny, whom I had seen briefly the morning I came back from Germany. We were concerned about her husband who had been sickly in the past. In self-quarantine, how would she get groceries delivered? (It’s not like the Checkers app or Uber Eats delivers there.) How was she to explain to neighbours and relatives they can’t pop in like usual? What unfolded in the next few days for our nanny warrants a full explanation, and I will write about this in a separate diary entry.

Calm and professional

The Western Cape Health department called the next day, and were amazing. The lead doctors spoke to me calmly and explained the protocol. I was to stay isolated within my house (stay in a separate room and have the family bring me food) and maintain strict cleaning protocols with contaminated items. The doctor kept talking about how to manage “the disease” – it sounded strange to be talking about a disease when I didn’t feel sick.

They also made contact with my contact list and airplane register, and are following up daily to inquire about symptoms – luckily for us, they remain mild. The Western Cape Health Department team are calm and professional; they helped communicate with the principal of our nanny’s school and dropped off masks for me at home.

What I realised soon after was that many still did not understand the extent of self-quarantine, never mind self-isolation. In fact, until the Western Cape Health department called the next day, neither did we really.

Fight or flight

As news of my positive status started to spread, I realised there were two ways in which people respond under threat: Fight, or flight. Some texted me words of strength and resilience, positivity and encouragement: the fighters. Others texted me about how and where to get tested, and how they could travel back to a place of safety: the flighters.

I have an emotional response to both. Mostly, I am worried about people not understanding the gravity of moving from one place to another, and the knee-jerk reaction to get tested. My GP checked in, and we chatted about my symptoms. My symptoms remain mild: a dry cough, body aches in the morning, loss of smell and taste; and shortness of breath in the beginning. Yesterday I had a mild headache; none of us has had a fever, yet.

Had I not tested positive, I would never have stayed away from work. We would have gone for family dinner on Wednesday night, with my 92-year-old granny, and aunts and uncles. While healthy people are mildly affected, I am still a carrier and I could really dangerously affect the vulnerable in my community if I don’t stay in isolation. I feel relieved we went into self-quarantine so quickly, and crushing guilt at the idea of how things could have gone wrong if I had carried on as normal. I chatted to my GP about the sudden rush to be tested, and concerned people messaging me about where to get tested

My GP’s reply

My GP shared the following information with me: GPs and hospitals are flooded by calls and visits by people whom we refer to as the “well-worried”. We get it, you’re anxious. The NICD – with some of our country’s brightest medical minds – and our public health authority have a CASE definition, which we as doctors and labs have to follow. You may be rich or feel entitled to a test; you may even consider lying about your symptoms; you may feel extremely anxious. More likely you’re well-meaning and are concerned about all your loved ones, your clients, your elderly neighbours.

As it currently stands, we have to follow the NICD suspected case definition. For the general population (not health care workers), that means:

You must have some symptoms of a flu-like illness. (Only a blocked nose does not count.) But this would be in conjunction with having:
Travelled abroad or you must have been in close contact with a known positive case. (In doctor speak: you have to have clinical and epidemiological criteria to be tested for Covid-19.)
There are a number of reasons why we can’t test everyone who:

Has flu-like symptoms, or
Has travelled abroad, or
Has been in close contact with a positive coronavirus case.
We don’t have enough test kits for all those people. If you are tested while you have no symptoms (regardless of whether you smooched your boyfriend who has tested positive or if you just arrived back from Milan), you are more than likely to test negative. However, this does not mean that you will stay negative; you could develop symptoms a few days later. A negative result while you have no symptoms will give you a false sense of safety and you will stop your self-quarantine before the 14 day quarantine period has been completed, thus potentially infecting other people.

The bottom line is that if you have travelled internationally, or if you have been exposed to a person who is a confirmed positive case, you must self-quarantine for 14 days. If during this time you develop symptoms, you will fit the criteria for testing, and you will be tested.

Taking it day by day

After a full week in isolation, my children and husband are still feeling strong, and are showing no obvious symptoms. We check our temperature a few times a day, to ensure they don’t go over 37.5 degrees Celsius. We decided that self-isolation within the house (me in a separate room at all times) was not an option with our young children, and have instead set up hygiene protocols to keep the house as clean as possible to try minimise the chances of infection.

Health care workers and my GP continue to monitor my symptoms and my family’s health daily, and are checking in with my contact list daily too. The directive changes daily, and the health care professionals on the ground are doing their best to manage us, their patients, within the new frameworks.

At first, self-isolation was 14 days, with two successful negative tests needed to exit self-isolation. The new directive is no further testing for positive patients, but in the case of a family, 21 days self-isolation if one family member tested positive. At first we felt trapped at the idea of another week inside our house, but a moment later it dissipated as we acknowledged we were actually really enjoying the family time.

Why am I sharing my experience?

I still cannot believe I tested positive. I feel almost completely healthy, and we are managing well under the circumstances. I want my community to know that having the virus is scary at first, but it’s manageable. If you are healthy, there is no need to be afraid. The bigger issue is considering the sick and elderly in our community, and how to keep them away from people like me.

Speaking out about life in quarantine has been a wake-up call for many of my friends and acquaintances, who suddenly know someone who has tested positive: the pandemic becomes real for them, and they see the world a little differently. Yesterday I found out one of my cousins, and two friends in South Africa (whom I have not seen in a long time) have also tested positive.

As the virus spreads, I wish I had hugged my granny one last time, I worry about our nanny who is in self-quarantine in the township, my almost retired parents who are preparing to help as doctors when the hospitals get full and my brave staff who are still hosting stranded travellers scrambling to get home.

Kim Whitaker is the CEO and co-founder of Once Travel – a youth travel company that operates experiences and hub hotels for adventurous travellers and storytellers. She has set up a fund for the Team of Once in Cape Town and Once in Joburg, where friends of Once can contribute