For those advocating a "Targeted Protection" strategy ... Some observations. [A brief thread]
1) According to the 2016 South African Community Survey from @StatsSA: In 2016, 4.5m (8.1% of the total) South Africans were over the age of 60. [As the population is aging slowly, this proportion is almost certainly a little higher now, nearly 5 years later]
2) Of these elderly (aged 60+), nearly 2 in 5 (38.0%) live in households with a least one person in primary or secondary school. Adding in those in tertiary education (aged up to 24) increases the proportion to 38.8%.
3) Also, of these elderly, nearly 3 in 5 (59.9%) live in households with a least one person aged between 6 and 39, the age group envisioned as returning to 'normal' under the Targeted Protection strategy.
4) On this latter metric, more than 2.7m South Africans, at highest risk of death from Covid, would struggle to be protected in the way envisioned by those behind that 'targeted protection' strategy.
5) Is this a practicable solution in South Africa? It would seem not. And those behind it seem to have neglected to take into account the complex and multi-generational households in which many South Africans live.
6) Reminder: it's not about the risk of children or younger adults (aged <40) dying from Covid, which is mercifully low; it's about the risk that exposure among that population poses to the elderly, with more fatal consequences.
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As promised: Why we DON’T need ANOTHER South African Covid dashboard that merely re-presents the data in the public domain. (A thread 1/26)
There is a sudden proliferation of public-facing dashboard websites that seek to present data on Covid in South Africa. What do these do; what data do they present; and what insights and value-add can they bring? (2/26)
In general, using a variety of web-apps (shiny etc), these dashboards provide ‘live’, ‘real-time’ ‘data’ on Covid, using dataviz techniques. (3/26)