Prognosis
Deaths Data Shows 80% of South Africans May Have Had Covid
- Discovery actuary based his assessment on excess fatalities
- Country has highest number of confirmed cases in Africa
A volunteers directs vehicles into a Zwartkops Raceway drive-through vaccination site, in Centurion, South Africa.
Photographer: Luca Sola/AFP/Getty Images
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As many as four out of five South Africans may have contracted the coronavirus, indicating that the country may be one of the world’s hardest-hit nations by the disease, the chief actuary at Africa’s biggest health insurer said.
Emile Stipp, the actuary at Discovery Health, based his calculations on the country’s case-fatality rate and excess deaths, a measure of the number of fatalities compared with an historical average. They are thought to provide a more accurate picture of the impact of the pandemic than the official toll.