South Africa should move from a ‘crude to a smart strategy’, with targeted interventions in densely populated places.
So said Professor Alex van den Heever, chair in the field of Social Security Systems Administration and Management Studies at Wits University.
He was responding in an interview with News24 to the report on the modelling, released by the government, by a consortium of some of the country’s foremost experts showing that between 40 000 and 45 000 South Africans could die from Covid-19 by November, with current numbers of ICU beds expected to be overwhelmed almost immediately.
Van den Heever said the models showed the government was on its way to realising its worst-case scenario, and appeared to have little planning strategies in place, except for creating more hospital beds.
‘When you reduce your strategy to trying to create hospital beds, you’re effectively reducing your strategy to digging graves,’ Van den Heever told News24.
‘It’s essentially an indication of failure, because your worst-case contingency has been realised, which is an epidemic at such a level that you don’t really have the ability to contain it,’ he said.
‘What this is suggesting is that our only strategy is to get more beds, not actually to introduce better intervention to suppress the epidemic; better non-therapeutic interventions.’
He argued that a balanced-risk approach appeared not to have been taken. This should include the risk to the economy, which was costing R13 billion a day, weighed against the cost of ramping up testing and tracing, which would cost about R20 billion per year.
Van den Heever said that, while implementing a hard lockdown for the first two to three weeks was appropriate, a lockdown-dependent strategy would always fail.
He recommended that South Africa should move from a ‘crude to a smart strategy’, with targeted interventions in densely populated places.
News24 reported that the release of the government’s projections during an extensive technical briefing with Health Minister Zweli Mkhize and members of several teams producing modelling for government on Tuesday night came after intense criticism over the apparent lack of transparency over the modelling and other Covid-19 data.
The projections, which the experts stressed were subject to change as more data became available, show:
Between June and November, 40 000 to 45 000 people could die from Covid-19, with nearly 500 deaths by the end of May;
The total number of cases between June and November is expected to be between 1 and 1.2 million, with around 50 000 cases expected by the end of May.
Projected need for ICU beds is between 20 000 and 35 000 between June and November, and 500 by the end of May.
General hospital beds required are expected to be between 75 000 and 90 000 between June and November, with just more than 2 000 beds required by the end of May.
Provinces are expected to peak at different times, with varying levels of infection and deaths, but the national peak infection rate is expected around mid-July to mid-August.
Teachers’ unions and education organisations criticised the government’s back-to-school plan, saying it lacked sufficient detail. Unions feared returning to school without necessary precautions could put lives at risk. The basic education department announced on Tuesday that schooling would resume on 1 June for grades 7 and 12 and for small schools.
Positive case rose by 803 to 18 003. Deaths increased to 339.
In other virus-related news
- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that millions of people could be pushed into extreme poverty in Africa due to the coronavirus pandemic and called for ‘global solidarity’ with the continent. ‘The pandemic threatens African progress. It will aggravate long-standing inequalities and heighten hunger, malnutrition and vulnerability to disease,’ Guterres said in a statement accompanying a UN study with recommendations for the African continent;
- World Bank president David Malpass said up to 60 million people would be pushed into ‘extreme poverty’ by the coronavirus. The bank expected global economic growth to shrink by 5% this year as nations dealt with the pandemic. This had already led to millions losing their jobs and businesses failing, with poorer countries feeling the brunt. ‘Millions of livelihoods have been destroyed and healthcare systems are under strain worldwide. Our estimate is that up to 60 million people will be pushed into extreme poverty – that erases all the progress made in poverty alleviation in the past three years,’ Malpass warned.