Omicron panic: How the dumping of 17 000 positive tests skewed the picture of SA’s epidemic trajectory
An untimely dump of 17 718 historic Covid-19 cases on 22 November created the impression that South Africa had seen a dire spike in coronavirus infections - just as the country told the world about the Omicron variant.
Within hours of the announcement of the discovery on Thursday, the UK and other countries introduced travel bans which have been slammed by President Cyril Ramaphosa as "unjustified".
However, at the exact moment the announcement was made, coronavirus data available showed that South Africa had seen a major spike in cases – from 312 on 21 November, to 18 586 on 22 November.
In reality there were only 868 new cases while 17 718 of the cases introduced were historic cases – some as old as April 2020, according to data reviewed by News24.
