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1/7 Thoughts on Ramaphosa's speech last night: "We are committed ... to be transparent, to take the nation into confidence". Why then is the NCC/Govt not releasing the data and the models used to determine the progression of the pandemic in SA? #CoronaVirusSA
2/7 The president talks about the experts and models they are using but seems determined to keep that data hidden. Open data fosters open debate and that's what we need now. More transparency, not less. #CoronaVirusSA
3/7 If transparency is the objective why are provincial governments not being mandated to release provincial and regional data publicly? Make it compulsory that provinces report regularly and consistently to their citizens. #CoronaVirusSA
4/7 Based on the infection data provided by govt there's no obvious reason NC, LP, MP, NW, and FS provinces should be at level 4 or even level 3. Unless of course there is no confidence in the testing/infection data coming from those provinces? #CoronaVirusSA
5/7 The public data available from these provinces reporting very low infection/death rates is also limited (sometimes non-existent) so there is no way to know if the numbers are in fact real or heavily under-reported. #CoronaVirusSA
6/7 And using this chart to show the lockdown has worked is disingenuous. Before lockdown testing was limited to high-risk cases and had started to decrease before the lockdown took effect. That was to be expected based on the number of tests and risk profile of those tested.
7/7 We also know that it can take many days before tests results are returned. To imply that infection numbers dropped suddenly following lockdown is very clearly a misrepresentation. For more on this see: http://coronavirus.mediahack.co.za/2020/04/20/relationship-between-tests-and-confirmed-cases
And 1 more: To be clear, not suggesting the lockdown hasn't had an effect or is unnecessary, just that that chart is a crude misrepresentation of the data and to suggest the infections literally dropped post lockdown is false.
