Paul Janisch

Preachers need their flocks – even if this is now banned. DigiFaith. The virtual church

"The preacher likes the cold, he knows I'm going to stay". So sang the Mamas and Papas in their 1965 hit "California Dreamin". Religious leaders will tell you that their places of worship attract the most visitors in times of crisis, that is assuming that these places of worship are in fact open to their congregants.

"I realised last Monday morning, after the President's COVID19 announcement, that the school TV network that we had built up over the last four years, was redundant for the next few months, "Danie du Toit, the founder of the DigiCampus Group told me. This put the livelihoods of 200 people -many of them Yes4Youth (Y4Y) employees on the line. "We had to make a plan to keep these people working."

To backtrack a bit, du Toit started DigiCampus as an online TV station that targeted the prominent schools in South Africa. It had gained a great reputation as a distributor of content like sports events, cultural activities and even matric dances that has been enjoyed by parents, pupils and former pupils all over the globe. Each school has their own TV station, with a dedicated camera and production team. These teams are made up of mainly Y4Y people, who had been given their first experience in the world of work. The cost for this was borne by DigiCampus. It follows that without school activities and with schools being closed, a large number of people are going to find themselves without work. "We need to understand that the YES people are the most vulnerable employees out there." du Toit observes. "They are on a fixed term contract at the minimum wage, most of the YES people out there are not placed in core or critical positions in their places of work. They are in effect a nice-to-have. This is not the case at DigiCampus."

There is the obvious option that they could continue streaming classes to the pupils because the infrastructure was there. But this became a much bigger challenge when teachers were told to stay home. "We had less than 24 hours to make a plan. Our business strategy has always been based on three principles, innovation, re-invention and community." Says du Toit."DigiCampus is a disruptive technology, so it was just a matter of placing a focus on other aspects of the community. And right now, if there is one thing that the world needs – it is access to their places of worship"

du Toit and his team set about contacting all the major churches in the areas where they had TV stations and created DigiFaith. They offered their crews to the churches for the purposes of broadcasting services. With Easter coming up almost every large traditional and charismatic church is now legally barred from hosting their Easter festivities. "The response was immediate", du Toit exclaims. There was a concern about revenue generation though. Many churches raise a lot of money over this period for their various activities. "We offered to provide them with pay-per-stream services for fund raising."

What is not known at the moment is how much of a disruption COVID19 will cause to our daily lives. What is required though is civil discipline containing the spread of the virus. "All of the churches we spoke to recognised their civic duty in emphasising the need for social distancing, hygiene and containment. They have now been given a powerful tool that will allow them to speak to each congregant in a meaningful way."

What we do know is that the world will be never be the same again, but faith and comfort in these trying times can still be accessed by anyone with a smartphone.

Third day of quarantine, Cornonavirus explained by Tom King

I think that the biggest problem we face is that we don't really understand how serious this virus is.  The Italians will tell you it's very serious, the Chinese know how serious it is.  We are on 202 cases as I type.  There is a lot of stuff on every type of communication platform telling us something about the virus, to the extent that the government has attempted to prevent the dissemination of fake news.

The story appears to be that human beings got it from animals. If you want to read a sobering take on this - please look at Tim Cohen's editorial from a few days' ago.  The opening paragraph is sobering.

Not since the Last Supper, has any single meal had a greater global significance. Somewhere in the Chinese province of Hubei, a family sat down to have, we think, a scrumptious meal of pangolin. The consequences are now unfolding at a furious rate. You could call it the trillion-dollar meal, except that it has already cost eight times that and will cost more. To the extent that we can know, what are the likely financial consequences of that one solitary meal?

What perhaps don't understand is why the virus exists in humans , why it's called novel and other questions.  I came upon Tom King's blog this morning. I'm not endorsing it but the explanation seemed to be very clear. I have taken a large chunk of Tom's post and put it here.  The paragraph below is not my work

"Feeling confused as to why Coronavirus is a bigger deal than Seasonal flu? Here it is in a nutshell. I hope this helps. Feel free to share this to others who don’t understand...

It has to do with RNA sequencing.... I.e. genetics.

Seasonal flu is an “all human virus”. The DNA/RNA chains that make up the virus are recognized by the human immune system. This means that your body has some immunity to it before it comes around each year... you get immunity two ways...through exposure to a virus, or by getting a flu shot.

Novel viruses, come from animals.... the WHO tracks novel viruses in animals, (sometimes for years watching for mutations). Usually these viruses only transfer from animal to animal (pigs in the case of H1N1) (birds in the case of the Spanish flu). But once, one of these animal viruses mutates, and starts to transfer from animals to humans... then it’s a problem, Why? Because we have no natural or acquired immunity.. the RNA sequencing of the genes inside the virus isn’t human, and the human immune system doesn’t recognize it so, we can’t fight it off.

Now.... sometimes, the mutation only allows transfer from animal to human, for years it’s only transmission is from an infected animal to a human before it finally mutates so that it can now transfer human to human... once that happens..we have a new contagion phase. And depending on the fashion of this new mutation, thats what decides how contagious, or how deadly it’s gonna be..

H1N1 was deadly....but it did not mutate in a way that was as deadly as the Spanish flu. It’s RNA was slower to mutate and it attacked its host differently, too.

Fast forward.

Now, here comes this Coronavirus... it existed in animals only, for nobody knows how long...but one day, at an animal market, in Wuhan China, in December 2019, it mutated and made the jump from animal to people. At first, only animals could give it to a person... But here is the scary part.... in just TWO WEEKS it mutated again and gained the ability to jump from human to human. Scientists call this quick ability, “slippery”

This Coronavirus, not being in any form a “human” virus (whereas we would all have some natural or acquired immunity). Took off like a rocket. And this was because, Humans have no known immunity...doctors have no known medicines for it.

And it just so happens that this particular mutated animal virus, changed itself in such a way the way that it causes great damage to human lungs..

That’s why Coronavirus is different from seasonal flu, or H1N1 or any other type of influenza.... this one is slippery AF. And it’s a lung eater...And, it’s already mutated AGAIN, so that we now have two strains to deal with, strain s, and strain L....which makes it twice as hard to develop a vaccine.

We really have no tools in our shed, with this. History has shown that fast and immediate closings of public places has helped in the past pandemics. Philadelphia and Baltimore were reluctant to close events in 1918 and they were the hardest hit in the US during the Spanish Flu.

 

 

SANAS has corona to the party with amended verification regulations. It was all my doing I tell you

This was sent to me by my old friend Obed.  I wonder whether this wasn't as a result of yesterday's post (it probably was).

Considering the number of requests and correspondences in reference to the COVID-19 pandemic, SANAS has reviewed the R47-02 procedures in order to accommodate B-BBEE Verification Agencies.

In terms of Paragraph 18.1.1 of the R47-02, the following is stated:
18.1.1 The BEE Verification Agency shall verify, evaluate and validate to verify measured entities based on the principles encapsulated in the BBBEE Codes of Good Practice and this document and shall include all relevant elements of the Broad-Based BEE scorecard. All verifications are to be based on information that has been verified by an on-site visit to the measured entity. No score can be given without an on-site assessment of the entity. 

Based on the extraordinary pandemic that South Africa is currently facing, in the interim, the following shall be implemented by B-BBEE Verification Agencies when conducting B-BBEE Verifications of Measured Entities:

•  The normal engagement processes between the Accredited Agency and the Measured Entity shall be conducted.
• Onsite Visits may be conducted remotely via any suitable recorded video communications channel, if the Onsite assessment is not viable.
• All necessary documentation that is required by the B-BBEE Verification Agency shall be obtained to support the accreditation process.
• Where documents that (sic) cannot be obtained, the B-BBEE Verification Agency shall view these documents via any suitable video communications channel, and which must be recorded appropriately.
• All interviews to be conducted via any suitable video  teleconferencing communications channel, which will be recorded and saved internally.
• A Director of a Measured Entity to provide Sworn Affidavits confirming physical location as well as all information provided in relation to the B-BBEE Verification as true and accurate. (Does this mean that an affidavit does not need to be oathed?)
  
• Measured Entities to provide proof of physical address not older than 3 months.
• The B-BBEE Verification Agency shall identify all risks and mitigate these risks with regards to Onsite Visits during this time.
• During this interim measure, the B-BBEE Verification Agency takes full responsibility of the results of the B-BBEE Verification Certificate and Report
• It should be noted that this is not a permanent solution, and it will be reviewed on a monthly basis from date of signature and will be implemented until further notice. (that's what you think.  The industry has changed now.  You'd better just keep up)
  

Signed

Yuneal Padayachy
ACCREDITATION MANAGER: B-BBEE
DATE: 18/03/2020

The first day of isolation - more posts to come

I have decided to be a lot more prolific during the isolation period  (I've broken my first rule about blog posts - rule 1 NEVER START A POST WITH I).  There's a lot to write about, and possibly a little more time to write than before.  We're OK here, we live in a biggish house and the kids have a fair amount of space to move around.  This is obviously very unlike the overwhelming number of people who don't have those kinds of privileges.  We have decided to set up a routine for ourselves and the kids and the three other people that live on our property.  If it helps you, I'll run through it

The kids are still at school.  The school is making a massive attempt to ensure that the lessons are delivered to them from Google Classroom, this is all very well but they still need to be supervised.  With both parents and our helper (affectionately known as the Magic Black Woman - I can't escape my massive Peter Green obsession) around to supervise, it's a little easier.  But we all have to work too.  The trick here is the routine

•   The kids need to start school at 7 or 7:30.  This means that they are dressed and have had breakfast and teeth brushed at that time.  They will have an hour and a half of supervised school work.  My working day will now start at 10 to accommodate this
• They then have an hour to play or run around or do some activity
• Classes resume at 11 until 12. 
• Break for lunch
• They must then entertain themselves for an hour or so.  As my wife says - they need to be bored and learn to be bored and figure out how to cope with this
• Half an hour to catch up on what they have done
• Then they are on their own

I think this routine is going to be more involved than this. We still don't know how to manage our own work schedules yet.  But we are going to be rigid in this routine during the weekdays.  Weekends will be different.  If we don't find ourselves quarantined because we have picked up the virus then we'll take them to the park, go for rides on our bikes and throw balls around, without talking to anyone

The other thing that we feel very strongly about is supporting local businesses.  There are a number of restaurants in our neighbourhood.  Obviously money is not flowing.  But we need to find ways to support them.  I can see that we will need people to go shopping for us for small items.  Hair still needs to be cut.  Newspapers (other than iqbal's - we are proudly an iqbal-free newspaper house) need to be bought.

I'll keep on publishing our (hopefully) progress.  Tempers are going to fray.  It's a matter of looking beyond this isolation and coming out the other end with a modicum of sanity.  What I do know is that the world will change substantially as a result of this virus.  Ways of doing business will change.  Already I have seen companies like DigiTV taking a lead in getting classes to people on the other end of an IP connection.  I'll write more on this in the days to come