From the number of excess deaths in South Africa, it appears that over half of South Africa has been infected with COVID at least once.
The CEO and founder of the Discovery Group, Adrian Gore, has said in an interview on 702’s The Money Show that he believes over half of the South African population has had COVID. He believes that there is “absolutely no ambiguity” that the “sky high” excess death rates recorded in SA are attributable to COVID. He said that the excess deaths point to over 50% of the SA population having been infected with COVID so far.
The latest data released by the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) puts the number of excess deaths in SA over the course of the pandemic at 137 731 – nearly triple the official death toll from COVID. Nearly 5000 Discovery members and 12 staff members have died.
Last week, SA National Blood Service released a study showing that 32% of people in the Northern Cape up to 63% of people in the Eastern Cape had contracted COVID. Gore said that this high infection rate would hopefully reduce the impact of the third wave predicted to arrive in the colder winter months.
“We are hoping that a third wave may take longer and might be less because we think the infection rate has been high.” He said, adding that if the first and second phases of vaccination targetting healthcare workers and vulnerable individuals was completed by mid-year, a third wave might be completely avoided.
He said that young, healthy people who can afford a vaccine should not be able to get one before those who were older and more vulnerable. “Not following this process would mean low-risk people get vaccinated before the clinically vulnerable, resulting in unnecessary illness and death. This cannot and should not happen,” he said in a Linkedin post.
He also refuted the rumour that Discovery was not paying contributions towards non-members’ vaccinations. In fact, he said on The Money Show, that medical aid schemes have extra cash to pay for this since members had been going for fewer treatments during the pandemic. This amounts to some R24 billion in surplus, as revealed by regulatory filings, which would be right in the middle of cost estimates for SA’s entire vaccination programme as opposed to the 30% amount that medical aid companies were being expected to contribute.
Source: Business Insider
