Are all coronavirus cases being reported?
The global pandemic is spreading rapidly, but some countries still do not have the capacity to test people.
The number of people infected by coronavirus has reached more than 700,000 globally, while 34,000 people have died of the disease.
These are the estimates by Johns Hopkins University in the United States, but do the figures accurately reflect the reality?
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If we are talking pure mathematics, curves usually indicate how severe cases are in a country and show its ability to control a crisis.
But there are other factors too – governments denying risks, facts suppressed, lack of access for poor people, and limited testing.
Be it in slums, townships, countries suffering conflicts and those without democracies, what is unknown is whether the outbreak is bigger than politicians are admitting, or are able to handle.
So is that hampering efforts to curb the disease?
Presenter: Peter Dobbie
Guests:
Mark Heywood – Human rights activist and editor of the Daily Maverick’s Maverick Citizen section
Arun Kumar – Economist and professor at the Institute of Social Sciences
Hopewell Chin’ono – Award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker
Published On 31 Mar 2020