South Africa’s 10 994 above-normal deaths between May and July – particularly in Gauteng and the Eastern Cape – could indicate that deaths from Covid-19 are higher than the official figure, according to a Bloomberg report.
It said that, compared with the predicted number of natural deaths from historical data (published weekly by the South African Medical Research Council) in the week ending on 3 July, the Eastern Cape had 90% more deaths and Gauteng 71% more.
Tracking excess mortality, the report said, is widely seen as way to gauge the full scale of fatalities from Covid-19. It includes those suspected of having the coronavirus who died without having been tested, as well as people who died of other causes after being unable to seek treatment because hospitals were swamped.
Neither of those categories, the Bloomberg report said, would be reflected in the official pandemic tally. It added that even though the Health Ministry added more than 100 000 confirmed cases in little more than a week this month, the Covid-19 mortality rate is relatively low. ‘As of Saturday, there were 4 948 deaths in South Africa attributed to the virus, far fewer than the 38 888 deaths in Mexico, which has roughly the same number of infections.’
The report quoted Ian Sanne, head of Right to Care, a non-profit organisation that provides treatment to people with HIV and associated diseases, as saying: ‘Particularly in the Eastern Cape, we are getting a significant under-reporting of mortality in villages and smaller towns. The risk is that we are missing quite a bit.’
However, Anban Pillay, a deputy director general in the Department of Health, dismissed the assessment, saying: ‘We disagree completely with this analysis. This is a theoretical argument.’
Cases grew in South Africa yesterday by 13 449 to a cumulative total of 364 328 (with 191 059 recoveries). Deaths rose by 85 to 5 033.
Gauteng’s share of national cases remained at 36.7% (rising to 133 617), followed by the Western Cape (23.6%, or 85 926), the Eastern Cape (17.3%, or 63 181) and KwaZulu-Natal (11.9%, or 43 215).
News24 reported yesterday that it had filed two Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) requests for access to the more than 70 advisories held by the Department of Health. This followed the department’s ignoring the news site’s request to see all the advisories, notes and correspondence between the department and the government’s Ministerial Advisory Committee (MAC), as well as access to detailed coronavirus data.
It quoted department spokesperson Popo Maja as saying on Friday that the reason for the non-response was ‘either that we did not have the requested data or the release of such would compromise patients’ personal information’.
News24, noting that it had never asked for information about patients, said: ‘There is clear evidence in presentations to the media by the Gauteng health department, reports by the National Institute for Communicable Diseases and elsewhere the data requested is being collected and analysed.’
This information included testing data (sample collection dates, sample delivery dates, location/facility where a sample was collected and processed); data around deaths (comorbidities, facilities where death was reported, location of deaths outside a healthcare setting); spatial data around contact tracing and case investigation; and hospitalisation data (date of admission, whether an ICU/ventilation was required/data on outcomes).
‘This data would allow for detailed mapping, to a suburb or ward level, of Covid-19 hotspots and enable citizens to be aware of outbreaks near their homes, schools or workplaces almost as they happen – allowing them to be aware of outbreaks near their homes or workplaces in near real-time.’
The news site noted that ‘(only) Gauteng and the Western Cape make daily data available on the number of cases per sub-districts and districts’.
The report noted that Health Minister Zweli Mkhize, in response to a question at a briefing last week, said the advisories would remain secret for fear of their being misconstrued as official policy.
In other virus-related news
- The number of new cases rose by almost 260 000 in 24 hours, the largest single-day increase since the pandemic began, the World Health Organization (WHO) said. The previous record rise in new confirmed cases was recorded by the WHO just one day earlier. According to the WHO, this is the first time the number of new daily infections has surpassed a quarter of a million. The global death toll also rose by 7 360 – the largest daily increase since 10 May. The total number of confirmed cases passed 14 million on Saturday, with over 600 000 recorded deaths;
- Florida reported 12 478 new cases, this being the fifth day in a row Florida announced more than 10 000 new infections. Reuters said fatalities in the state had risen by 78% during the last two weeks compared with the two weeks before. The number of daily cases confirmed through testing in the United States increased to more than 60 000 but the number of daily deaths remained about half as high as during the peak in April;
- Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said the city was on the ‘brink’ of issuing another stay-at-home order. Over the past two weeks, Los Angeles County recorded 39 557 new cases. Garcetti told CNN the reopening of business and other activities in the city had taken place too soon;
- Turkey suspended flights to Iran following a spike in cases; and
- Hong Kong recorded its highest one-day increase in cases since the pandemic began, according to the territory’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam. She said there had been more than 100 new infections, and announced new restrictions to contain the spread.