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A cursory look at the latest report on weekly deaths in SA, published by the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) in collaboration with the University of Cape Town’s Actuarial Research unit, calls attention to the increase in deaths in SA to unprecedented levels.
It immediately shows up an anomaly between the government’s official figures of Covid-19 deaths and thousands of other unusual deaths.
The latest figures from the Department of Health – issued on Monday (August 9) – show that 75 012 people lost their lives due to Covid-19 since the first reported deaths at the end of March 2020, but the SAMRC says there have been 222 500 “excess deaths” from natural causes since May 3, 2020.
The report states that there is no universal definition, or understanding, of what is meant by excess mortality, explaining it as a “term used in epidemiology and public health that refers to the number of deaths that are occurring above what we would normally expect”.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) uses the term to describe mortality above the expected mortality rate when there isn’t a crisis causing unusual deaths. During a crisis, whether a violent uprising or a pandemic, the deaths above this normal death rate would be classified as excess deaths.
Correlation with Covid-19 waves
The immediate indication that Covid-19 might be the cause of excess deaths in SA is the close correlation between the periodical increase in registered Covid-19 deaths and the increase in the total death rate.
The total number of deaths in SA increased sharply whenever Covid-19 deaths increased, and the numbers are huge.
During the so-called second wave of infections and deaths (June and July 2021), the number of excess deaths from all causes in SA increased to a peak of nearly 10 000 per week for two weeks running. In just five weeks, excess deaths amounted to 42 458.
This is the loss of life above the normal occurrence of people passing away in SA as part of the normal cycle of life, including tragic untimely deaths.
Weekly deaths in SA from all causes
Source: SAMRC
Professor Debbie Bradshaw, the chief specialist scientist at the SAMRC, says that while the research body does not have access to definitive information about causes of death, evaluation of the available data leads to the conclusion that the gap between known Covid-19 deaths and other excess deaths is mostly due to an under-reporting of Covid-19 deaths.
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