News24 understands that questions have arisen over the apparent stranglehold by the Department of Health on access to spatial data (geo-located confirmed coronavirus cases), data around testing, screening, contact tracing and hospitalisation data - which includes availability levels of medical supplies and high care beds.

This follows a turbulent 48 hours in which:

- Dr Glenda Gray, head of the South African Medical Research Council, one of the country's foremost HIV/Aids researchers and a member of the MAC, slammed the government's lockdown, calling much of it "unscientific" and "nonsensical";

- She was supported by other scientists and clinicians, as well as various members of the MAC, who said the MAC was not consulted on some aspects and details of the lockdown;

- An after-hours meeting of the MAC on Saturday night, during which Gray was reprimanded by Anban Pillay, acting director general of health; and

- Health Minister Zweli Mkhize, in late night phone calls to reporters, defending the government and his department's actions, denying that, among other things, information is being withheld.

He was responding to a News24 query sent last week, in which access to numerous data sets around Covid-19 was requested, and the Department of Health was asked to address the apparent cloak of secrecy around some types of data.

Van den Heever, the chair in the field of Social Security Systems Administration and Management Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand's School of Governance, told News24 in a wide-ranging interview the reasons given for withholding data, specifically around the location of confirmed cases as well as testing and contact tracing data, were illogical and unscientific.

So far, the Department of Health has not released modelling data or projections, reports over progress made to identify hotspots through testing and screening, contact tracing, testing data per region, and testing data that shows the growth rate of the epidemic (rate of positive and negative cases found per tests done), as well as data that shows time delays and backlogs in testing.

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