The lockdown is a catastrophic failure and will kill far more people than the virus. An analysis by Pandemic Data Analysis (PANDA) estimated years of life lost to the lockdown to be 14 million, or 30X more than from the virus itself.
In late March 2020, the government’s official data modellers suggested 351,000 could die from Covid-19 in South Africa. PANDA was hastily formed to challenge this wild spreadsheet modelling. The team comprises actuaries, data analysts, economists and other specialists. PANDA challenged the government’s models, suggesting that it was more likely that 10,000-20,000 would die from the virus. Based on the current figures, PANDA is right on target as the virus infection curve maps a typical epidemic decline tail.
SA is not alone in heeding advice from sources that deserve far more scrutiny than they are getting. UK epidemiologist Neil Ferguson, who had Covid-19 himself, had to walk back his original outrageous projections of 500,000 UK Covid-19 deaths, when in fact the virus has claimed less than a tenth of this.
