‘Rich Mix of Modelling Data’, Mkhize Says

21st May 2020

Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize says there has been a rich exchange of computations and modelling forecasts to assist government in its fight against COVID-19.

He said while there has been disagreement with some information presented by independent modellers, there is now a pool of different information which allows government to refine its models going forward.

Mkhize was speaking during a digital meeting with members of the media and independent modellers on Thursday. Earlier in the week, Mkhize allowed a team of experts commissioned by the department for modelling to present their data to the media. The session on Thursday allowed for independent modellers to present their data to the media.

“We do anticipate that there will be things we had gotten right, things we had gotten wrong, but we will only know once we have gotten to the other side of the pandemic. We have the utmost cooperation from everybody and the most important weapon we need to focus on is correct information and sharing information in a certain way that allows our people to have more insight into the pandemic,” Mkhize said.

“We will defeat the pandemic on the basis of collective social and behavioral change. Unless our citizens themselves take responsibility for infection control, we will not be able to win.”

Mkhize said there has been a rich exchange of various forms of computations and modelling forecasts so far.

“We needed a bit of time to try and increase our health services and this is when a lot of modellers came in to look at what our figures would be. We have seen number of different models, all of them are independent models. Some of them we agree at certain levels, some of them we disagree with at certain levels…but what it has generated is a rich exchange of various forms of computations and modelling forecasts,” he said.

“They started with postulations based on various considerations and based on certain countries experiences…but over the past two months or so, we have more information for purposes of refining the models going forward.”