Covid-19 Update
While a new sub-variant of Omicron is spreading through South Africa, scientists said it won’t necessarily cause another wave of infections.
There have been 3 266 new cases of Covid-19, making the total reported cases 3 616 075. Covid-related deaths have reached 95 627, while the number of recovered patients climb to 3 465 681. At the moment there are 54 849 active cases and 30 101 147 vaccines have been administered.
Load Shedding South Africa and Eskom Update
After Eskom’s recent load shedding announcement, the power station has given more insight into what led to the current situation.
Since 28 January, Eskom has been struggling with a series of breakdowns that wiped 4 000 MW complete off its grid. And by February 2nd, Eksom lost over 8 000MW due to breakdowns. This contributed to the total 13 000MW offline on the grid.
Eskom’s “pumped storage” was not working as planned and had no choice but to burn through the diesel reserves.
ALSO READ: Cape Town hopes to leave load shedding behind with plans to move away from Eskom
South Africa Markets Update
On Thursday, 3 February, the South African Rand (ZAR) weakened while the market is affected by local load shedding. Eskom’s announcement of power cuts until Monday only further constrained economic growth in South Africa. And as a result, the “global risk appetite faltered“.
On Friday, the rand is trading at R15.24/$, R17.47/€ and R20.73/£.
Johannesburg suffers due to criminals
The City of Johannesburg is currently sitting with 120 broken traffic lights that were damaged in just two months. This is mainly due to criminals who cut through the infrastructure to get to the copper cabling inside.
According to the city, it will have to pay R37 million in order to repair the broken traffic lights. And on top of the R300,000 to R400,000 per traffic light, the city is suffering more financial loss through increased insurance premiums due to the damage.
Thus, Johannesburg calls on law enforcement and other agencies so that together they can find ways to combat criminality and vandalism.
