As South Africa continues to see an increase in new cases, celebrities and social media influencers have been challenged to step in and join government in the fight against COVID-19.<\/p>\n
This was among the suggestions raised during an interactive conversation with South African youth held on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) led the virtual session under the theme: \u201cSA Youth\u2019s Facts on Vaccination: A shared Responsibility\u201d.<\/p>\n
The session forms part of government\u2019s initiative to work with young people to combat misconceptions about COVID-19, while creating an enabling environment for the youth to contribute ideas on how to stay safe during the pandemic, and how vaccines can restore normality.<\/p>\n
Entrepreneur and social media influencer, Daniel Marven, who was among the guests, said the rise in the number of COVID-19 infections and deaths is also due to carelessness, adding that it is not going to be easy to change people\u2019s mind set.<\/p>\n
Marven noted that with the country now on alert level 1, some people, especially the youth, no longer adhere to the COVID-19 regulations.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can preach about COVID-19, but when you go to pubs and bars, people are not following the regulations. Maybe celebrities hired to perform at the events, should force the event organisers to enforce COVID-19 restrictions, like wearing masks, where they are performing,\u201d Marven said.<\/p>\n
Echoing Marven\u2019s sentiments, radio presenter and artist, De Original Careless, said that artists can send messages about COVID-19 through songs and comedy. Storytelling by celebrities and influencers will be more meaningful and have an impact.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can fight Coronavirus through comedy or storytelling, while having fun,\u201d Careless said.<\/p>\n
Department of Sport, Arts and Culture spokesperson, Masechaba Khumalo, said: \u201cYoung people are most likely to listen to celebrities and influencers, and we can make use of them to send out the message.\u201d<\/p>\n
The guests also looked at ways to address fake news stories and encouraged people to verify information from news sites that publish credible content, before retweeting a \u201cstory\u201d.<\/p>\n
They recommended that government make use of unemployed Information Technology (IT) students to come up with software that can detect and prevent fake news. <\/p>\n
Senior Researcher, Dr Sheetal Kassim, encouraged the youth to assist people over 60 years to register for the COVID-19 vaccine.<\/p>\n
Kassim assured that the vaccine is safe. \u2013 SAnews.gov.za<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As South Africa continues to see an increase in new cases, celebrities and social media influencers have been challenged to step in and join government in the fight against COVID-19. This was among the suggestions raised during an interactive conversation with South African youth held on Wednesday. Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) led the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[38678],"class_list":{"0":"post-190226","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-sanews","8":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190226\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}