Gauteng can’t fight Covid-19 with fake figures

24 November 2020

Gauteng’s officially recorded COVID-19 figures are becoming more and more ludicrous, providing little guidance in tracking the epidemic to prevent hotspots developing further.

According to the latest figures from the National Health Department, there are only 283 active cases in Gauteng, the lowest in the country despite having the highest population.

It is simply not possible to have so few active cases when there have been 1887 new COVID-19 cases recorded in the last ten days.

Furthermore, there are 1624 COVID-19 patients in Gauteng hospitals according to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD).

The Gauteng Health Department used to give a daily breakdown of cases by district, but has not given any update since 4 November 2020.

It is essential that accurate figures are available for the districts so that any spike in cases can be combatted quickly.

Acting Health MEC Jacob Mamabolo needs to act urgently to ensure that real infection statistics are available and monitored closely to manage this epidemic properly.

Issued Jack Bloom, DA Gauteng Shadow Health MEC, 24 November 2020