Provincial update #COVID19 in South Africa πΏπ¦
Here's a look at the key metrics of case incidence and test positivity rate per province in South Africa π
Quite a lot going on between the provinces, so I'll make this a thread π
Let's start with good news!
Northern Cape and Free State showing promising signs of a decline. Both are still at very high case incidence rates,so certainly not out of the woods yet π
NC case incidence rose up to 1.5 times previous peak.
FS went up to 90% of 2nd wave's peak π
Average of 2,531 cases/day over the past week; 52% of total cases in SA β¬οΈ
Cases in GP currently doubling every 2 weeks π
Hospital admissions also increasing, up +30% week-on-week. More deaths being reported now too β οΈ
Western Cape cases starting to increase faster now too! 401 cases/day over past week, up 31% week-on-week. Case incidence up to 12% of it's 2nd wave peak π
Mpumalanga also rising, cases up 19% compared to a week ago. Case incidence now up to 19% of it's previous peak π
Limpopo, Eastern Cape, and KwaZulu Natal still at low case incidence rates, however all are increasing sharply β¬οΈ
I'm back with another tweet on #COVID19 in South AfricaπΏπ¦ (that hiatus didn't last long) π
A lot of questions about whether it's the right decision to stop reporting daily #SARSCoV2 data in SA?
I believe it is, for a few reasons... [Thread] π§΅
1. Yes #SARSCoV2 is still around, and won't magically disappear, but the risk of severe disease and death has reduced significantly, primarily due to high levels of population immunity in the country.
Graph of reported and in-hospital #COVID19 deaths in SAπΏπ¦ shown below:
2. Testing has declined substantially, and so case numbers and even test % positivity have become unreliable as a true reflection of actual #COVID19 infection rates.
An ONS-style randomised infection survey as done in the UKπ¬π§ would be useful, but we don't have such here in SAπΏπ¦
Thread.. π§΅
I have received a lot of questions about #COVID19 deaths in South Africa πΏπ¦
Here's a graph showing the different metrics of mortality: reported #COVID19 deaths, in-hospital #Covid_19 deaths, and excess deaths over the course of the pandemic :
1/n
There have been 1,274 total deaths reported over this BA.4/BA.5 or 5th wave of #COVID19 in South Africa πΏπ¦
This is just over one-fifth (21.5%) of the 5,923 cumulative deaths reported over previous Omicron BA.1 wave over the summer months & significantly less than previous waves
Reporting of #COVID19 deaths in South AfricaπΏπ¦ are laggy and under-estimated. Since the Omicron BA.1 wave, NDoH has been conducting audit exercises and reporting backlogs but unfortunately provide no context as to when those deaths actually occurred nor make that data availableπ€·ββοΈ
With new #COVID19 cases in GautengπΏπ¦ having peaked recently, promisingly cases didn't plateau but well on the decline now π
Current 7-day rolling avg at 1,609 or 10.2 per 100k, down 39% week-on-week and already down to 51% of recent peak π
2/6
Latest #COVID19 test % positivity in GautengπΏπ¦ for week ending 21 May = 19.6% π
Testing has remained low, understandably, so test % positivity is naturally higher but after peaking it has continued to decline, confirming the decline in infections π
Testing remains significantly lower than before, not surprising... But while test % positivity is very high (1 in ~4 tests positive), it too appears to be flattening π€
Not surprising given fewer people testing, but increase is steep, up from 11.9% a week prior. With 1 in every 5 tests returning a positive result, it also indicates many more cases going undetected π§