Coronavirus (COVID-19) is on the increase in South Africa and the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) has revealed the latest infection figures after a data audit.
NICD corrects SA’s latest COVID-19 infection tally
On Day Two of the nationwide lockdown, the disease institute confirmed that after a rinse through the testing data from laboratories, South Africa currently sits on 1187 COVID-19 cases, a difference of 17 from Friday’s total.
While the NICD did not explicitly describe Friday’s 1170 announcement as a statement not backed by facts, they did concede to the fact that “figures may not always add up sequentially.”
“We are actively cleaning #COVID19 patient data to ensure that the information is verified and accurate. Data cleaning is required to conduct deduplication of contents and to correct details of patients in order to determine the most effective public health intervention. As such, figures may not always add up sequentially due to the activities being performed with regard to data cleaning and quality assurance of the dataset,” the NICD tweeted.
SA lockdown update: How was Day Two?
South Africans are slowly, but surely, climatising to the idea of social distancing. On the second day of the 21-day lockdown, law enforcement authorities were out in droves, dealing with the previous day’s teething issues and coordinating social distancing measures at ‘essential’ landmarks.
The disease institute and other state health organisations are doing everything they can with the resources available to thoroughly conduct contact tracing and tests.
Total patients tested for COVID-19 in South Africa
At this time, with 1 187 cases and an exhaustively wide trace net, only 31 963 tests have been conducted. The Western Cape is the only province thus far that has recorded a death resulting from COVID-19.
The country’s health minister, Dr Zweli Mkhize, has yet to announce the updated COVID-19 tally since the above is a correction of what was stated on Friday.
Based on the growth pattern of infections in South Africa, the total infections may have already breached the 1 500-mark. However, this is a mere assumption that is inferred from data patterns.
The actual infection toll will be confirmed by the health ministry in due time.
