It’s Blackout Tuesday, a day promoted by activists to observe, mourn and bring about policy change in the wake of the death of George Floyd. This movement has spread on social media, where organizations, brands and individuals are posting solemn messages featuring stark black backgrounds, sometimes tagging the posts with #BlackLivesMatter and #BlackOutTuesday.

The movement was started by music execs Jamila Thomas and Brianna Agyemang, who wrote on a site that Tuesday, June 2 would be a day to pause all business and take a stand against the “racism and inequality that exists from the boardroom to the boulevard.”

The movement would take the form of people posting all black pictures to Instagram and other social media platforms.

There are large complaints about the movement, saying this is a time to spread awareness, and not just literally “black out” social media feeds. There are arguments that now, more than ever, is when communication shouldn’t be “blacked out.”

The hashtag is being rendered useless. When people click on the hashtag, they’re being confronted with a sea of black squares and not with anything about what’s going on with protests across the country.

As protests have spread across the US in response to the police killing of George Floyd, social media has provided an essential channel for both organizing demonstrations and sharing footage of police violence.

Over 100 labs around the world are scrambling to come up with a vaccine against the novel coronavirus, including 10 that have made it to the clinical trial stage.

Pharmaceutical company executives said on Thursday that one or several Covid-19 vaccines could begin rolling out before 2021, but they did warn about the challenges saying they would be “daunting” as it was estimated that 15 billion doses would be needed to halt the pandemic.

It can take years for a new vaccine to be licensed for general use, but in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, experimental vaccines shown to be safe and effective against the novel coronavirus could likely win approval for emergency use.

The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA), which organised Thursday’s briefing, highlighted the “daunting” challenges facing the industry in the push for a vaccine.

One challenge, which may seem counterintuitive, is that transmission rates are rapidly declining in Europe where some of the trials have been taking place.

IFPMA director Thomas Cueni pointed to estimates that the world will need some 15 billion doses to stop the virus, posing massive logistical challenges.

He stressed that the industry was committed to ensuring equitable access to a future vaccine, but acknowledged that “we will not have sufficient quantities as from day one, even with the best efforts.”

Once a working vaccine is developed, one of the biggest obstacles to putting out the amount needed could surprisingly be that there are not enough glass vials to store the doses in.

The novel coronavirus has killed more than 355,000 people and infected at least 5.7 million worldwide in a matter of months.

Ramaphosa gave an update on the government’s risk-adjusted strategy to manage the spread of Covid-19 in the country. He had consulted with business, labour, religious leaders and the tourism industry prior to his address to the nation on the 24th of May. He announced on Sunday that shifting to the new alert level would also allow exercise at any time provided it is not in groups. 

He said the country would be placed on level 3 of the national lockdown regulations on June 1. Alcohol will be sold when level 3 kicks.

He mentioned that the “drastic containment measures taken” that had been imposed on the nation had slowed the rate of infection and prevented health facilities from being overwhelmed, although this had caused “great hardship” to many people.

“We have known all along that the lockdown would only delay the virus … not stop it,” he said.

On Sunday evening there were 22,583 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the country and 429 deaths.