Thread by @dwallacewells

“The findings show that covid-19 deaths accounted for 15-20% of all sampled deaths - many more than official reports suggest and contradicting the widely held view that covid-19 has largely skipped Africa and had little impact.” (1/x)
bmj.com/company/newsro…

“They also show that covid-19 deaths occurred across a wider age spectrum than reported elsewhere and were concentrated among people aged under 65, including an unexpectedly high number of deaths in children.”

“The absence of data on covid-19 in Africa has fostered a widely held view that the virus has largely skipped Africa and had little impact. However, this may be an example of the ‘absence of evidence’ being widely misconstrued as ‘evidence of absence.’”

“To address this evidence gap, a team of international researchers set out to measure the fatal impact of covid-19 in an urban African population. Overall, the virus was detected in 70 (19%) of people. The average age at death was 48 years and 70% were men.”

“Most deaths in people with covid-19 (73%) occurred in the community,” as opposed to the hospital, “and none had been tested for the virus before death. Among the 19 people who died in hospital, six were tested before death.”

“The proportion of deaths with covid-19 increased with age, but 76% of people who died were aged under 60 years.” (X/x)