Morgue data hint at COVID’s true toll in Africa
▻https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00842-9
Around 90% of deceased people tested at a Lusaka facility during coronavirus surges were positive for #SARS-CoV-2 infection, suggesting flaws in the idea of an ‘African paradox’.
Trying to Solve a Covid Mystery: Africa’s Low Death Rates - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/23/health/covid-africa-deaths.html
But many scientists tracking the pandemic on the ground disagree. It’s not possible that hundreds of thousands or even millions of Covid deaths could have gone unnoticed, they say.
“We have not seen massive burials in Africa. If that had happened, we’d have seen it,” said Dr. Thierno Baldé, who runs the W.H.O.’s Covid emergency response in Africa.
“A death in Africa never goes unrecorded, as much as we are poor at record-keeping,” said Dr. Abdhalah Ziraba, an epidemiologist at the African Population and Health Research Center in Nairobi, Kenya. “There is a funeral, an announcement: A burial is never done within a week because it is a big event. For someone sitting in New York hypothesizing that they were unrecorded — well, we may not have the accurate numbers, but the perception is palpable. In the media, in your social circle, you know if there are deaths.”
Dr. Demby, the Sierra Leone health minister, who is an epidemiologist by training, agreed. “We haven’t had overflowing hospitals. We haven’t,” he said. “There is no evidence that excess deaths are occurring.”
Which could be keeping the death rate lower?