Most South African wards vulnerable to Covid-19 are in the Eastern Cape

Almost 270 wards in SA may be sharply vulnerable to Covid-19 due to a combination of high vulnerability to contagion and high potential death rates.

Of that number, 171 — or 63% — are in the Eastern Cape.

Municipal IQ, a web-based data and intelligence service, designed two indices to assist the government and private clients in disaster management and healthcare when it comes to planning a response to the virus outbreak.

The high-risk wards are concentrated across the east of the province in Mbhashe, Ingquza Hill, Matatiele and Elundini.

According to the research, 269 wards across SA are at high risk. Researchers urged the government to focus their efforts against Covid-19 particularly in these wards.

The possible risk of fatalities in a ward are partly age-related.

Municipal IQ's research, released on Wednesday, was followed by the health minister Zweli Mkhize's announcement that the government was prioritising 993 wards across SA for testing in the coming days.

There are 705 wards in the Eastern Cape and more than 4,000 across the country.

The vulnerability to contagion used these factors to measure the risk of contagion at a ward level:

* Informal housing
* The number of people in one household
* Access to water and sanitation
* Population density
* Access to transport
* Annual income [with below R19,000 considered extremely vulnerable]

In this index, the Eastern Cape “fared badly because it has one of the biggest concentrations of poverty in the country. It was not a great surprise,” said Municipal IQ MD Kevin Allan.

“There are some areas of somewhat mitigated contagion risk, despite high levels of poverty in parts of Limpopo and the Eastern Cape.

“Despite some exceptions — and these may be significant in terms of the number of potential patients — essentially the hot spots of poverty reflect those communities most vulnerable to the spread of Covid-19.”

Allan said though the country's population was relatively young the coronavirus had high mortality rates even in areas that did not “correlate with the highest risk of contagion”.

“Of course there are numerous variables that are unique to SA — most worryingly the high incidence of HIV/Aids and TB, especially where this might be untreated — that could manifest differently from the projections.”

He said it was important that municipalities' ability to contain the virus be taken into consideration. On the index that looks at the possible risk of fatalities in a ward, the province fared no better.

Data from the China mortality rate shows that people aged around 80 and older were likely to die from the virus.

“The other thing we found from the data is that men were more likely to die from Covid-19 than women.”

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