{"id":421330,"date":"2020-07-30T16:50:41","date_gmt":"2020-07-30T14:50:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=421330"},"modified":"2020-07-30T16:50:41","modified_gmt":"2020-07-30T14:50:41","slug":"south-africas-covid-19-deaths-higher-than-reported-experts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/421330\/south-africas-covid-19-deaths-higher-than-reported-experts\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa’s Covid-19 deaths higher than reported: experts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Medical researchers in South Africa\u00a0found<\/a>\u00a0a \u201chuge discrepancy\u201d between the country\u2019s confirmed Covid-19 fatalities and the number of excess natural deaths, providing further evidence that the number of people who have perished from the disease is higher than the government reports.<\/p>\n

South Africa has the world\u2019s fifth-worst epidemic, with 471,123 cases. The Health Ministry reported 7,479 Covid-19 deaths to date on Wednesday, significantly lower than Iran or the UK, which have a similar total case count.<\/p>\n

Yet the number of excess deaths has shown a \u201crelentless increase\u201d in the past weeks, reaching 22,279 between 6 May and 21 July, far higher than what would have been expected based on historical data, the South African Medical Research Council said in a report Thursday.<\/p>\n

Reported deaths have also shown a pattern that is completely different to those indicated by historical trends, it said.<\/p>\n

In the week ended 21 July there were 6,256 excess deaths, 63% higher than would normally have been expected and a rise from 59% the week earlier.<\/p>\n

Excess deaths are generally calculated using all-cause mortality. The council\u2019s Burden of Disease Research Unit, together with the Centre for Actuarial Research, analyzed the numbers using a different approach, focusing on deaths from natural causes and removing the impact of changes such as the lockdown on unnatural deaths.<\/p>\n

In South Africa, deaths related to trauma have slumped as the sale of alcohol has been banned and there are also fewer car crashes.<\/p>\n

The council \u201chas been tracking mortality for decades in South Africa, and this system has identified excess deaths associated with the Covid-19 epidemic,\u201d Glenda Gray, the council\u2019s chief executive officer, said in the statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese may be attributed to both Covid-19 deaths as well non-Covid-19 due to other diseases such as tuberculosis, HIV and non-communicable diseases, as health services are re-orientated to support this health crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Read: South Africa\u2019s R350 coronavirus grants will be made available to more people<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Medical researchers in South Africa\u00a0found\u00a0a \u201chuge discrepancy\u201d between the country\u2019s confirmed Covid-19 fatalities and the number of excess natural deaths, providing further evidence that the number of people who have perished from the disease is higher than the government reports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":390183,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-421330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421330"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":421332,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421330\/revisions\/421332"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}