Staff Reporter
The Free State Department of Health says it will urgently review its COVID-19 statistics as it believes some of the figures are not an accurate reflection of the situation in the province.
The decision follows concerns that the province presently has the second highest number of active cases in the country yet it has one of the lowest rates of infection.
Latest figures indicate that the Free State has 14 737 active cases of the acute respiratory disease and is only second to Gauteng with 20 276.
“We have discovered that our statistics need verification and some clean-up because they may not be a true reflection of what is there,” provincial health department spokesperson Mondli Mvambi told The Free Stater by telephone.
“They are not a lie but we discovered that, in certain instances, people may take things for granted in favour of other pressing matters.”
“There are a number of recoveries that are not properly captured,” he added.
“It’s an allegation that remains to be tested. So, we want our people to clean up their data.”
Mvambi said over the coming week the department will undertake an extensive review process to ensure it has accurate figures.
“By Wednesday next week, different sectors of the COVID-19 response team in the Free State will be put through a review process to check the statics they have, what they did right, what they did wrong and what corrective measures could be put in place,” he said.
The Free State has a confirmed cumulative total of 45 353 COVID-19 cases.
Gauteng has nearly five-fold that number at 218 420, but the Free State – whose confirmed number of cases only make up 6.8 percent of the national figure – comes second to it.
Gauteng makes up 32.7 percent of the country’s confirmed cases.
South Africa now has a total of 667 049 cumulative cases.
The country has 54 850 active cases following 595 916 recoveries.
However, 16 283 people have died.
The total number of confirmed cases in the Free State only makes up 6.8 percent of the national figure while Gauteng makes up 32.7 percent.
Overall, 29 778 people have recovered from COVID-19 in the Free State while 838 have succumbed to it.
Mvambi said, among other issues, the number of deaths recorded in the province might not be a true reflection of the situation on the ground.
“Some people have been infected with COVID-19 . . . and never went for a test because they were asymptotic and died of other things along the way,” he explained.
“Remember, the virus ceases to be active in your body, but it is still there.
“And because we swab bodies here in the Free State, it may reflect that you are COVID-19-positive but there is a high probability that you did not die of the disease.
“But your death is registered as COVID-19.”
The spokesperson admitted that fatigue could be overwhelming members of the response teams resulting in some of the unintended results.
“The danger with statistics is that people get under pressure to report on a daily, weekly or monthly basis,” he said.
“It becomes a mad rush of statistics. If you don’t update for one day, you may be considered incompetent.
“Now, you are forced to release data that may not be adequately verified.”