Contact tracing has failed and government app is little more than “wishful thinking”, says Wits University’s professor Shabir Madhi, in a Sunday Times report.
Science reporter Tanya Farber writes that contact tracing is only effective if 75% of contacts are traced. She quotes Madhi, who is leading SA’s vaccine trials: “The department has indicated that anyone admitted to hospital should be tested. This is for patient management and provides health-care workers with some sort of buffer.”
In non-hospital community settings, however, “no active drive or screening is taking place” and testing only happens when symptomatic people request it.Without efficient contact tracing and quarantining, testing serves little purpose other than to let the patient know if they’re infected or not, said Madhi.
“When it comes to tracing, we have never been able to reach a target for that strategy to be successful. Around 75% of close contacts need to be traced, and on average, each person has 120 close contacts. We have never come close to those targets.”
At the beginning of September, the national Health Department launched Covid Alert SA, which it touted as a “powerful new mobile application that would strengthen the country’s digital contact-tracing efforts”.
The maths behind the app was that every 100 infections that could be prevented using the technology would prevent up to 20 hospital admissions and save two lives. However, Madhi said the app was little more than “wishful thinking” and it is a “false belief that technology is going to save the day”.
[link url="https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/news/2020-11-08-covid-19-contact-tracing-still-a-pipe-dream-says-prof/"]Full Sunday Times report (subscription required)[/link]