It is the dawn on alert level 2 of the country’s lockdown, and while many South Africans will be heading to stores in order to buy cigarettes and alcohol now that the ban on those items has been lifted, there is still the matter of COVID-19 in South Africa to contend with.

Over the past couple of weeks there has been a steady decline in the number of new daily infections, with the recovery rate rising too.

What impact level 2 lockdown and the easing of restrictions will have, remains to be seen, but over the past 24 hours, the National Department of Health has recorded 2 541 new cases.

This brings the total number of infections to date to 589 886 for the country. Of that figure, there have been 477 671 recoveries, which translates to an 80 percent recovery rate, according to the NDoH.

While those numbers do offer some cause for optimism, the number of fatalities related to COVID-19 in South Africa has also risen. Over the past 24 hours, 143 new deaths have been reported, bringing the total at this stage to 11 982.

Breaking it down by province, the NDoH explains that 50 are from the Eastern Cape, 14 from Gauteng, 14 from KwaZulu-Natal, 3 from the Northern Cape, 5 from the Free State, 25 from Mpumalanga and 32 from the Western Cape.

The full breakdown of COVID-19 in South Africa is as follows:

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 Timothy Dykes on Unsplash]