The National Department of Health (NDoH) was looking for any positive signs earlier this week with regard to the number of new COVID-19 infections in the country, but the two-day long streak of daily new cases being under 10 000 has quickly ended.
This as the latest COVID-19 in South Africa figures saw 11 362 new cases being recorded in the past 24 hours. The result is that the number of infections in the country now sits at 471 123 at the time of writing.
It therefore looks like we are quite far from stemming the tide of this massive second wave of infections.
Exacerbating the news is the fact that 240 deaths have also been recorded over the past 24 hours, with South Africa’s number of fatalities being 7 497.
Looking at the numbers, the worst impacted provinces has remained the same, with Gauteng leading in terms of infections at 168 369, accounting for 35.7 percent of cases in the country.
Delivering the figures last night, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize is still trying to remain positive by highlighting the recovery rate and high testing figures.
To that end the number of recoveries currently stands at 297 967, which translates to a recovery rate of 63 percent. The total number of tests conducted to date is 2 873 163, with 42 528 new tests conducted since the last report from the NDoH.
The full breakdown of COVID-19 in South Africa is as follows:
Province | Confirmed Cases | Recoveries | Active cases | Deaths |
Western Cape | 93 737 | 76 835 | 16 902 | 2 983 |
Eastern Cape | 75 872 | 62 371 | 13 501 | 1 579 |
Northern Cape | 4 135 | 1 275 | 2 860 | 29 |
Free State | 19 207 | 2 178 | 17 029 | 154 |
KwaZulu-Natal | 71 240 | 32 483 | 38 757 | 712 |
North West | 18 231 | 7 181 | 11 050 | 72 |
Mpumalanga | 12 442 | 6 393 | 6 049 | 65 |
Gauteng | 168 369 | 105 614 | 62 755 | 1 836 |
Limpopo | 7 840 | 3 637 | 4 203 | 67 |
Unknown | 50 | |||
TOTAL | 471 123 | 297 967 | 173 156 | 7 497 |
As always, in order to stay up to date with the spread of COVID-19 in South Africa and abroad, we advise the following materials and platforms:
- Dr Zweli Mkhize on Twitter
- COVID-19 Connect on WhatsApp – add 0600 123 456 as a contact and say “Hi”.
- World Health Organisation
- SA Coronavirus website
- SA Government
- SA Presidency
[Image – Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash]