Friday Briefing | Lies, damned lies and statistics: the problem with Covid-19 numbers

View in web browser editorial Current data giving us a false sense of reality The experts continue to crunch the Covid-19 numbers and what some of them have to say does not make for pretty math and paints a way more sombre reality than any of us would want to or care to imagine. These are rational minds, for whom the numbers are far more useful, insightful and vital than emotive posturing. We are going to need all the rational and sober voices if we are to stay informed and stave off the hysteria and panic caused by mis-information, fake news and government double-speak. Professor of demography at the University of Cape Town Tom Moultrie points out that most of us have a few favourite dashboards "that are looked at, contemplated, and read for signs with all the avidity of soothsayers reading entrails or tea leaves".   He cautions that these dashboards offer little prospect for meaningful insight into the current condition of the outbreak. News24 investigative reporter Kyle Cowan points out that it is way too early for us to be patting ourselves on the back for thinking that we have flattened the dreaded curve.  "Until a large percentage of the 56 million people living in the country are tested, it is almost impossible to say for certain how widespread the coronavirus is," Cowan says. Clear minds, clean hands as the saying goes. Until we meet again, stay safe and chin up.   Best Yunus Kemp Opinions Editor     The lead What can - and can't - we learn from the official Covid-19 data? That government and official agencies should be trying to present more useful and timely data is indisputable; however, doing so should not detract from their core missions. By Tom Moultrie analysis The big problem with South Africa's official Covid-19 numbers It is clear that with the partial easing of lockdown infections will start increasing at a more rapid rate. The question that remains is at what pace. By Kyle Cowan OPINION South Africa's challenge: How to reshape itself post-Covid-19 For the ANC, it will clearly want to use this opportunity to shape the country into the mould it would like. Will it be safer and more efficient? Or will it be safer but more authoritarian? Will it be less liberal and more nationalistic? By Daniel Silke OPINION It's the health system AND the economy, stupid The economy and a functioning healthcare system are not two opposing forces, as some 'truthers' want us to believe. By Adriaan Basson opinion Covid-19 loans will force government to account for money spent In our case, those who argue against accepting a loan from the IMF on the basis that such funding interferes with a country's sovereignty are often unable to show how a country's sovereignty has been used to further development goals including caring for the poor and the vulnerable.  By Ralph Mathekga Photo of the week President Cyril Ramaphosa finally managed to fit the mask propely to his face after an awkward few attempts at the end of his address to the nation this week. (GCIS) Editor's pick Denis Goldberg's life was 'the radical contradiction to the system of apartheid': The only white person convicted in the Rivonia Trial in the Pretoria Supreme Court along with Nelson Mandela, Govan Mbeki, Walter Sisulu and others, Denis Goldberg spent more than a quarter of his life in jail before he was released in 1985.   Could SA's lockdown 'experiment' help chart a path to a more sober, less violent country? Researchers will need to carefully untangle cause and effect when it comes to learning what lockdown and a moratorium on alcohol sales have meant for the country - and our collective future, writes Koot Kotze  More than a million children, thousands of ECD operators at risk without state support: If 30 000 ECD programmes serving vulnerable communities stop operating, it would mean that nearly 1.5 million poor children would not have a place of care and early education to go back to after lockdown, writes Laura Brooks and Sumaya Hendricks.  Most read The Stockholm Syndrome of coronavirus lockdown: We simply don't have the luxury of an enduring emotional bond with being in lockdown. It is a fear we have to overcome if we are all going to survive this pandemic, be it from a health or an economic perspective. Read more  Lockdown: The restrictions will ease, but our grief might not: It feels to me that we are all in a fast moving rapid of uncertainty at the moment. We have little control over where we are going, but we can trust that our resilience will eventually carry us to calmer waters. Read more  President's affection for Maduro, Rouhani perplexing: Why the ANC repeatedly chooses to stand on the side of the world's ugliest dictators is anyone's guess. It could be simple naivety, along with the nostalgic view that so-called revolutionaries are always good. Read more  Photo credits: Gallo/Getty Images Download our News24 App CONNECT WITH US Unsubscribe