Prof Alan Whiteside: Covid-19's sad reality as politics takes centre stage with Dr Gray, Cummings, Bolsonaro

Former UKZN professor and now CIGI chair in Global Health Policy, Prof Alan Whiteside, continues calling a spade a bloody shovel in this forthright update on the coronavirus pandemic. He weighs in on the needless furore around the head of SA's Medical Research Council - and the very necessary one around Dominic Cummings (pictured), UK PM Boris Johnson's special advisor, who designed the UK's lockdown rules and deliberately broke them when his wife got the virus. In the light of SA's record 1,700 new infections yesterday, Prof Whiteside explains why, from a medical perspective, SA's lockdown may have been lifted too soon. - Alec Hogg