In a sharp departure from his position last month, on Thursday (27 August), Health Minister Zweli Mkhize released a tranche of the scientific advisories he commissioned on COVID-19, following requests from various stakeholders, reports Business Day. They include advisories on some of the most controversial topics, which include a recommendation to impose restrictions on the sale of alcohol to reduce the trauma load on hospitals and limiting taxi occupancy to curb coronavirus transmission.
On 13 July, Mkhize told reporters that the guidance provided by his Ministerial Advisory Committee (MAC) on COVID-19 would not be published because their advice did not represent the government’s final position on the issues they covered.
SA Medical Research Council president Glenda Gray said in the report many of the doctors and scientists appointed to the MAC felt it was important to be transparent about their work. “It was our job to provide the advice. Obviously, there may have been other factors at play — maybe political or economic — that limited the ability of these advisories to be implemented,” she said, noting that many of the advisories commissioned by the minister dealt with subjects that did not lie solely within the health department’s jurisdiction.
“I am very pleased they have been made public,” said MAC chair Salim Abdool Karim. The 51-member committee is considering a change to South Africa’s COVID-19 testing strategy, which is restricted to priority groups such as healthcare workers and people at greatest risk of severe illness. It has changed several times since the first case was confirmed on 5 March.
“Almost all the advisories were accepted and implemented by the department and the government. The recommendations made were also presented at National Coronavirus Command Council level. This assisted the government in taking into account the clinical and science-based view, among others, when making its decisions,” Mkhize said in the Business Day report.
“There are few advisories (less than 5%) that were not implemented by the department in their entirety. This followed consultations with various stakeholders and in some instances, guidelines published by institutions such as the World Health Organisation,” he added.
The report says the release of the advisories was welcomed by several MAC members, including Francois Venter, deputy executive director of the Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute. “It is about time. There is hardly anything controversial here, keeping them behind a veil of secrecy meant essential information was delayed in getting to the public and even relevant government departments, and led to incoherent policy from essential parts of the COVID-19 response,” he said, citing schools as an example of a key advisory that was not acted on.
The scientists explicitly recommended that minibus taxi occupancies should remain at 70%, and even be reduced to 50% in areas experiencing high numbers of COVID-19 cases. But government, notes News24, in what was seen as bowing to pressure from the taxi industry, allowed a return to 100% capacity in early July.
News24 also explains that on 16 July, it filed a Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) request asking for the advisories to be made available. The request was denied, and it filed an internal appeal on 18 August.
A second PAIA application for access to more detailed COVID-19 data had been ignored, and an appeal was filed on 19 August.
[link url="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/health/2020-08-27-health-minister-publishes-tranche-of-covid-19-advisories/"]Full Business Day report[/link]
[link url="https://sacoronavirus.co.za/category/mac-advisories/"]MAC advisories[/link]
[link url="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/investigations/covid-19-scientists-stood-firm-behind-advice-that-taxis-should-only-operate-at-70-occupancy-20200827"]Full News24 report[/link]