By James Martin
Zimbabwe’s government has admitted that its COVID-19 data faces inaccuracy challenges due to the nature of the pandemic.
This comes after the public have raised concern on the authenticity of daily statistics being released by the government.
Citizens are of the view that the government could be suppressing some of the figures to avoid panic.
In a telephone interview, COVID-19 Taskforce Chief Coordinator Agnes Mahomva told Open Parly that COVID-19 stats on both deaths and positive cases are inconclusive.
“Our technical teams are seized with analysing the (Covid-19) data. We are also roping in the private sector who are also helping with postmortems.
“As we will be analysing the data, the surge continues. So we might be a little bit behind in terms of really finalising and coming up with a conclusion of it all,” she said.
Mahomva said Zimbabwe is not the only country that could be facing challenges with COVID-19 data tallying. She said even the United Kingdom and United States of America could be finding themselves in the same predicament.
“We need to remind ourselves that in an epidemic this happens anywhere whether its in China, America or Europe.
“The numbers that we report on a particular day may not be exactly the numbers for that day. Sometimes we issue out a report in a day and then the following day in our report we add numbers from the previous day.
“So that race of trying to have as accurate numbers as possible per day will be always be there. There are few challenges here and there we acknowledge that. That is the nature of trying to report an epidemic as it happens,” said Mahomva.
Take Govt figures with a pinch of salt
Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health and Child Care Jasper Chimedza refused to answer questions adding that Open Parly should go through the ministry’s public relations office.
He said his ministry engage with the press through the public relations office.
“Put your questions through our public relations department that’s how we operate,” Chimedza said.
Health practitioners have also warned that COVID-19 data is prone to inaccuracies and must be taken with a pinch of salt.
“Chances are high that the death numbers being given out could be lower than what is on the ground. Does government have capacity to cover the whole country including those in rural communities?
“It does not have, but that does not mean people are not dying. People are dying out there without the knowledge of the government,” said one medical practitioner.
Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 in March 2020, Zimbabwe has lost over 900 people.
Among those who lost their lives are three ministers, senior army officials among others. #OpenCovidContracts
Govt. admits inaccuracies within its COVID-19 stats
