BUSINESS WATCH WITH MICHAEL AVERY
WATCH: The week in perspective
Michael Avery speaks to Warwick Lucas, Raymond Parsons and Isaah Mhlanga, about the week’s happenings
It’s more Bleak Friday than Black Friday, with bad news for the rand and our tourism sector as the UK places the country temporarily back under red-list travel restrictions after scientists raised the alarm over the new Covid-19 variant yesterday afternoon.
The rand has weakened to worse than R16 to the dollar.
About 35% of South Africans are fully vaccinated, higher than in most other African nations, but half the government’s year-end target. It has averaged 106,000 doses a day in the past 15 days in a nation of 60-million people. We need to start seeing an urgent increase in vaccination rates to avoid the worst effects of a new variant on our healthcare system and economy.
To put the week into perspective, Michael Avery is joined by Warwick Lucas, head of Galileo Securities; Raymond Parsons, professor in the School of Business and Governance at Northwest University, Isaah Mhlanga, chief economist at Alexander Forbes.