‘It draws attention to the depth of the pandemic’: Why Covid stats are still important

The national health department says there is a backlog in capturing the country’s Covid cases and deaths, but are South Africans still interested in these stats?

The health department revealed a few days ago that there is an undercount of cases and deaths in South Africa, and experts say that this data remains important so that South Africans are still aware that the coronavirus is widespread, despite entering the third year of the pandemic.

The health department has for the past week been announcing a possible backlog in capturing Covid-related deaths during their ongoing audits. It, however, says the backlog is not due to a lack of capacity in capturing data but was caused by the department being made aware of Covid-related deaths much later.

“In terms of Covid deaths, there are others which we only get to know of later. Whether the report of the [Covid-related death] came on time or it came later, we still need to add it to the register so we can roughly know how many people died of Covid… That is why we have a backlog. It is not to say that we have more deaths than capacity to capture them,” said the Health Department’s spokesperson Foster Mohale.

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As of Monday night, the country stood at 3.5 million cumulative Covid cases, with 1,691 new cases being recorded that day. Eighty-seven deaths were recorded on Monday, bring the cumulative Covid mortalities to 93,541. The recovery rate was at 94.8%.

But these stats were limited as there are still a lot of cases and deaths which have not been accounted for, said Stellenbosch University epidemiologist Dr Jo Barnes.

“There is a serious undercount of both cases and deaths. The category of ‘recoveries’ is misleading since there is no attempt to establish how many discharged patients still have symptoms sometime later,” said Barnes.

As the country enters its third year of the pandemic and is adjusting to the new normal, the daily Covid statistics remain important, even if South Africans are experiencing Covid fatigue.

Mohale said the pandemic was far from over and things would only become normal once it changes to an endemic or epidemic.

“An endemic is like a normal disease like TB, which we get to live with, or flu as there is treatment for such diseases. In this case, we are still battling to find the actual treatment for Covid, apart from the vaccine. If we have treatment for it, like we do for TB and HIV, then it might change to a normal disease. Unlike flu, which is seasonal, Covid has no season and will be ongoing until we really have more information about it – otherwise we won’t stop recording data,” he said.

There is, however, no formal definition to “an end of a pandemic”. It all depends on whether a country is able to live with the disease, explained Barnes.

“It depends on the disease involved and the environment where the outbreak occurs. Informally, one can say that when the disease’s numbers – which are counted in many ways such as illnesses, serious cases, deaths and those left with impairments – reduced to levels the country can handle or live with.”

“The numbers do serve a purpose in drawing attention to the depth and reach of this pandemic and how widespread it is,” said Barnes.

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– rorisangk@citizen.co.za