[ad_1]
Palour funeral staff preparing a grave for a Covid-19 death.
- The excess deaths were registered between May 3, 2020 and January 23, 2021.
- The SAMRC said the increase in excess deaths between December 2020 and January 2021 was relentless.
- There has been an apparent decrease in deaths in the last week.
South Africa has recorded an excess of more than 125,000 natural deaths during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a report by the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC).
The report, which was released on Thursday, noted that since May 3, 2020, the cumulative number of excess deaths from natural causes had reached more than 12,500 by January 23, 2021.
READ | SA’s first batch of Covid-19 vaccines will arrive on February 1
The SAMRC report on weekly deaths in South Africa uses information on natural (illness and other medical conditions) and unnatural (injury) deaths recorded in the national population register.
“In the context of the emerging Covid-19 pandemic, it has become essential to track the weekly number of deaths that occur. The deaths recorded in the National Population Register are provided to the SAMRC on a weekly basis.
Estimate
“These have been expanded to estimate the actual number of deaths taking into account the people who are not in the population register and the underreporting of deaths,” he said in the report.
The SAMRC characterized the increases during December 2020 and January 2021 as relentless, but noted an apparent decrease in the increase in the most recent week.
According to a report by the South African Medical Research Council, SA recorded more than 125,000 excess deaths during the pandemic.
SAMRC supplied
“While we are cautiously optimistic that the decrease in week three represents a real change and indicates the change of excess mortality in the current wave of the pandemic, the trend will be clarified with the data of week four that the SAMRC will publish on February 3, 2021, “said Professor Debbie Bradshaw, SAMRC’s chief scientist and co-author of the report.
Bradshaw added that at this point there was no way to know if the deaths were directly associated with Covid-19 or with an overloaded healthcare system.
ANALYSIS | How will leaders who break the blocking rules influence the ballots?
“Unfortunately, it will probably be a few years before we have the information on the medical cause of death, and therefore we cannot distinguish between deaths directly associated with Covid-19 and those that may have resulted from overloading of the COVID-19 system. health, “he said. .
SAMRC President and CEO Professor Glenda Gray said they would work with the national Department of Health and the National Institute of Communicable Diseases to help improve reporting on the number of deaths from Covid-19.
“The SAMRC has been tracking mortality for decades, and this system has allowed South Africa to be one of the few middle-income countries capable of tracking the excess deaths associated with the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The team is collaborating with the Department of Health and the National Institute of Communicable Diseases to establish a data linkage project to improve the reporting of confirmed Covid-19 death figures in the country,” Gray added.
