Cape Town Covid-19 plight worsening
• Research body reports a sharp spike in natural deaths
The Medical Research Council (MRC) has reported a sharp spike in natural deaths in Cape Town in the week to May 19, signalling the city’s deepening Covid-19 epidemic.
The Medical Research Council (MRC) has reported a sharp spike in natural deaths in Cape Town in the week to May 19, signalling the city’s deepening Covid-19 epidemic.
Natural deaths are those triggered by a disease such as cancer or an infection, and do not involve external causes such as accidents or murder.
The researchers compared the weekly tally of natural and unnatural deaths with trends observed in previous years. During the Covid-19 lockdown, unnatural deaths have been significantly lower than expected, due to fewer traffic accidents and homicides.
This trend continued in the week to May 19. But for the first time since confirmation of the first Covid-19 case in SA on March 5, weekly analysis has identified significant rises in natural deaths in Cape Town, Nelson Mandela Bay and the Western Cape. “We are taking it as an early signal of the impact of Covid-19,” said the director of the MRC’s burden of disease unit, Debbie Bradshaw.
Western Cape is the province hit hardest by the disease, with about 65% of the more than 24,000 cases reported in SA so far. About half of the Western Cape’s cases are in the Cape Town metro.
Researchers have been monitoring trends in SA’s natural deaths closely as they are expected to provide the clearest picture of the pandemic’s effect on mortality. This is because limited testing capacity means official figures may undercount Covid-19 deaths, and there are extensive delays in Stats SA’s publication of data on underlying causes of death recorded on death certificates.
Stats SA’s detailed report on the underlying causes of deaths in 2017 was published only two months ago. But researchers had access to almost real-time data on natural and nonnatural deaths for people with SA ID numbers as this information was captured quickly on the population register managed by the home affairs department, said Bradshaw.
“It’s a really important tool to track trends: it can signal a health epidemic and its impact.”
The population register captures about 85% of the people living in SA. The analysis excluded babies under the age of one.