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South Africa 59% excess deaths imply hidden COVID-19 toll

Published 23/07/2020, 10:48

By Tim Cocks
JOHANNESBURG, July 23 (Reuters) - South Africa witnessed
some 17,000 extra deaths from natural causes or 59% more than
would normally be expected between early May and mid-July,
scientists said, suggesting many more people are dying of
COVID-19 than shown in official figures.
New data by the South African Medical Research Council
(SAMRC), released overnight, showed that just in the week to
July 14 - the latest figures available - there was an excess of
5,022 deaths by natural causes, about half more than usual.
Africa's most industrialised nation is in the middle of a
runaway epidemic of the coronavirus, with cases increasing by
more than 10,000 day and the current total just shy of 400,000.
But its recorded death toll has so far been low, at 5,940 deaths
or less than 1.5 percent of cases.
Debbie Bradshaw, chief specialist scientist at the
government-funded research council, said the figures revealed "a
huge discrepancy" between the confirmed COVID-19 death toll and
the number of excess natural deaths.
President Cyril Ramaphosa implemented a tough lockdown at
the end of March, shutting shops, requiring people to stay at
home and sending the army on to the streets to enforce it back
when South Africa had only 400 recorded cases.
But a surge in poverty and unemployment in a country that
already had too much of both spurred the government to lift
restrictions well before the peak of infections.
The council's data showed that of the 17,090 extra deaths,
11,175 were people over the age of 60, a telltale sign of
COVID-19, which is overwhelmingly more deadly for older people.
Ramaphosa said this month that scientists had predicted up
to 50,000 deaths in South Africa, a figure which seems possible
based on Thursday's findings by the council.

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