[imagesource: Kim Ludbrooke / EFE]

Today is South Africa’s 146th day of lockdown, although the drop to alert level 2 has certainly taken the edge off.

Here’s a pro tip to those who aren’t yet keen to emerge from the cocoon – social visits with friends and family are limited to 10 people.

Wait too long to respond and you might find yourself axed from the list – boom, job done.

But we aren’t here to talk about how you can wriggle out of things you don’t want to go to, so let’s focus on the matter at hand, and a look at how effective South Africa’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic has really been.

In an excellent article on GroundUp, Nathan Geffen and Alex Welte have unpacked the various facts and figures, starting with South Africa recording the fifth-highest number of confirmed infections.

We usually reference the Worldometer numbers (see here), but that’s not really the entire story:

South Africa has performed more tests than most (16th place, as far as we can tell) and we track births and deaths about as well as some developed countries. These two factors, of which we can be proud, unfortunately also make us look worse than many countries that have little capacity to test for Covid, or to count deaths.

It’s also worth pointing out that of the 592 144 confirmed cases, only 94 412 are currently listed as active, which would see us drop to 10th on the same list.

However, our confirmed deaths tally – 12 264 – is likely quite a bit higher, due in part to the excess deaths we have discussed before.

There is a correlation between COVID-19 deaths and excess deaths, both in terms of timing and location, so we can be certain that the actual death toll of the pandemic is higher.

But how much higher?

Reliable long-term disease death predictions are simply not available. Nevertheless, it now seems safe to say that by the end of September there will be over 40,000 actual Covid-19 deaths, though these will not be reflected in the official count.

The epidemic is in decline, but it is far from over and it could surge again if lockdown relaxes and if we collectively drop our guard with physical distancing, face masks and hand hygiene…

Some South Africans seem keen to dismiss talk of a potential ‘second surge’ as fearmongering, but I think I’ll go with the medical experts on this one.

The GroundUp article also compared COVID-19 deaths to those attributed to AIDS and TB:

TB is the most frequently recorded cause of death in South Africa, and there were under 30,000 such deaths in 2017 – fewer than any serious estimate of Covid deaths in 2020…

South Africa’s most informative AIDS model (Thembisa) estimated that there will be 63,000 AIDS deaths this year. That was before we had social distancing and all the anti-Covid measures which have reduced transmission of respiratory infections – a major immediate cause of death for people living with HIV.

The number of AIDS deaths in the country has dropped dramatically since ARVs became more widely available, evident from the fact that in 2006 alone, around 300 000 people died of AIDS in South Africa, or close to 6 000 a week.

Using both the official COVID-19 death count, along with the excess deaths, the week of July 15 this year surpassed 6 000 deaths, but to have that sustained over an entire year is staggering.

In conclusion, the article says that whilst our government has clearly dropped the ball on many fronts (and further eroded public trust along the way), things could have been worse:

The ban on cigarettes made no sense; nor did the restrictions on exercise hours. Over-zealous restrictions on workplace activity have left the economy reeling, but a comparison of other countries (including Sweden) shows that epidemics can easily stall economies even if one does not explicitly decree a halt to most activities.

Stealing protective equipment contracts, and other opportunistic corruption, is indeed abominable. Despite all this, it could easily have been so much worse. The government has not done too badly in its stated main aim: to reduce Covid-19 deaths.

I guess it says a great deal about our faith in our government that we view things through the lens of “it could easily have been so much worse”.

Our early, decisive call to go into national lockdown should still be applauded, but as the months rolled by, and the crisis deepened, it only seemed to make certain prominent political figures dig their heels in further.

Read the full GroundUp article here.

[source:groundup]