It was with great sadness that we recently announced the sudden death of our esteemed colleague and the editor of SA Instrumentation & Control, Steven Meyer. Steven will be greatly missed by our industry.
A huge thanks to our entire editorial team for helping to compile this issue in Steven’s unexpected absence. We look forward to announcing Steven’s successor soon. Our contributing editors Michael Brown (http://www.instrumentation.co.za/14984r) and Gavin Halse (http://www.instrumentation.co.za/15444r) have their regular columns in this issue.
In Steven’s last editorial column before he died, he laid out logical reasons for every South African to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19. His reasoning remains absolutely sound. We are seeing many companies mandating vaccination for their personnel, including many of the mining houses and other big industries.
Our company, Technews Publishing, has had a mandatory vaccination policy in place since the third quarter of 2021. The company’s directors voted unanimously on the subject. Additionally, guests that wish to visit our premises are only permitted to do so if they are vaccinated.
It has been interesting to note that there have been two CCMA rulings allowing companies to dismiss employees that refuse to be vaccinated.
At the time of writing this, South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa had just delivered his 2022 State of the Nation Address (SONA). Tragically, he had to deliver the address from the Cape Town City Hall due to the recent destruction of the general assembly hall of parliament. It is a great pity that the President didn’t take the opportunity to announce mandatory vaccination for all 1,3 million civil servants and other state employees. It’s a pity that he didn’t have the courage to do it. It is tragic that private and public companies have to lead the way on a subject as crucial as this. Our country’s leadership is fiddling whilst the economy and parliament both figuratively and literally burn.
The sooner we all get fully vaccinated the sooner our country, and specifically the economy, will return to normal. Stay safe and get the jab!
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