The National Department of Health (NDoH) has released its latest figures for COVID-19 in South Africa, reporting on the key statistics for the pandemic over the past 24 hours, as it has done for some time now.

These latest ones, however, are a little peculiar, as 903 new daily infections over the past 24 hours. If that number sounds familiar, it is because the same figure was recorded the previous day, which would mark the first since the pandemic first hit South Africa that such an anomaly has been recorded.

There were one or two queries on social media when the NDoH posted the figures online, but at the time of writing no explanation as to why the numbers are the same has been given.

Perhaps it’s a side effect of being under lockdown for so long, but having the exact same number of new daily infections on consecutive days is odd nonetheless.

As for the total number of infections to date, it now sits at 672 672, with 606 520 recoveries also being reported. The recovery rate for COVID-19 in South Africa therefore translates to 90.29 percent, which is always a positive.

Unfortunately 81 more fatalities have been recorded though, pushing the total number of deaths related to the pandemic locally to 16 667.

Of the new 81, the NDOH confirms that eight are from the Eastern Cape, 10 from the Northern Cape, 11 from KwaZulu-Natal, 28 from Gauteng, five from Limpopo, eight from the North West, six from the Western Cape and five from Free State.

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 Arturo Rey on Unsplash]