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SA's Crime Stats - where do we stand in 2020 “Indeed, we are not where we want to be; however, we are pleased with the improvements in most stubborn crime categories.” This is a statement that was made by Minister Bheki Cele regarding the release of South Africa’s latest crime stats. On the 31st of July, Police Minister Bheki Cele released the 2019/2020 crime statistics, which painted a sobering picture of South Africa, particularly from a violent crimes as well as a gender based violence perspective. These have been especially prevalent throughout South Africa’s lockdown period. In terms of benchmarking and comparing crime rates year on year, murders are considered “one of the most reliable indicators of violent crime.” From the 1st of [...]

Take A Load Off With the daily bombardment and continual information overload, it’s no wonder that your brain may feel like it’s turning to mush, or that there is a haze hanging over you. Well, the good news is that you are not alone in feeling like this. Much like the global collective experience of vivid dreaming that has been increasingly reported since the onset of the pandemic, “load theory” as concept has now been labelled, is the reason why we may be feeling less like ourselves, or somewhat “out of sorts” explains Nilli Lavie, a professor of psychology and brain sciences at University College London. Our brains, as sponge-like as they sometimes seem – have a limited capacity to store everything that’s [...]

Uber who? Kasi catering to the townships When South Africa’s COVID-19 ‘state of disaster’ lockdown regulations were lowered to level three, many people rejoiced as this meant the return of some of our favourite creature comforts, as well as a welcome excuse not to cook a meal ourselves. However, on a more serious note and on a much greater scale, it also allowed for certain sectors of the economy to open up under the strictest of conditions and regulations and resume limited forms of trading. While many in the restaurant sector found operating under these conditions impossible or not worth the overheads, many rose to the challenge and got creative in terms of their takeaway menus, delivery options as well as other food [...]

What's up with WhatsApp WhatsApp like many other applications has taken advantage of the current COVID-19 climate and has chosen to release some of its latest application capabilities while usage is at an all time high. The latest features, which will be released in the upcoming weeks include improvements to its video calling capabilities, something that has become an increasing necessity given the rise in popularity and dominance of competing video calling platforms such as Zoom and House Party to name a few. Other feature updates include animated stickers (which you may have already seen) as well as the implementation of QR codes. WhatsApp Messenger simply known by most as WhatsApp, owned by Zuckerberg’s Facebook, is used by approximately 2 billion people worldwide. [...]

South Africa's quest for COVID-19 Vaccine On the 23rd of June 2020, through a virtual conference hosted by the University of the Witwatersrand, it was announced that the first clinical trial in the country for a COVID-19 vaccine known as the South African Ox1Cov-19 Vaccine VIDA-Trial would commence over the coming months. The purpose of the vaccine of course is to prevent future infections of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19. As it stands, and at the time this article was written, South Africa has over 220 000 diagnosed cases of COVID-19 and over 3500 deaths attributed to the virus. The month of June has boasted some of the largest single-day infection increases with incremental increases in the levels of infection rising rapidly. This, in [...]

The role of data dashboards in COVID-19 & beyond Esri’s ArcGIS may sound like a random assembly of letters strung together, but it actually refers to a type of technology that most of us have been interacting with either on our laptops, desktops or phones. One of the most relevant examples of ArcGIS in action is the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 Dashboard (Johns Hopkins Covid-19 Dashboard) which is a website that was assembled by the University’s Centre for Systems Science and Engineering. The dash board tracks the total number of infections world-wide, as well as by country. The dashboard also tracks global deaths as well as the number of recoveries in the US. The dashboard’s focal point is an interactive heat map that shows [...]