Earlier this week, Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize addressed the nation’s media to provide an update on COVID-19 in South Africa, and the country’s plans to continue to fight the spread of the virus locally.
He also issued a warning, urging citizens to adhere to the regulations, and in particular to continue to wear their face masks in public, as well as sanitise often in a bid to ensure we do not fall prey to a second wave of infections.
Ever since we moved to alert level 1 lockdown, we’ve seen the number of new daily infections stay at a relatively low rate, but a continued life under lockdown and the recent heat wave will likely make people more antsy.
For now though, the numbers are on trend from what we’ve seen over the past few weeks.
To that end, the National Department of Health (NDoH) has reported 1 050 new cases over the past 24 hours, pushing our total number of infections to date to 706 304. As for recoveries, they now register at 639 568, with the recovery rate remaining at the 90 percent mark it has for some time now.
Unfortunately, 164 additional COVID-19-related fatalities have been recorded over the past 24 hours too, with the total number of deaths now at 18 656.
Of the new 164, the NDoH has confirmed that 46 are from the Eastern Cape, 41 from the Free State, 52 from Gauteng, one from Mpumalanga, two from the Northern Cape, eight from the Western Cape, nine from KwaZulu-Natal and five from Limpopo.
The full breakdown of COVID-19 in South Africa is as follows:
Provinces | Confirmed Cases | Recoveries | Active cases | Deaths |
Western Cape | 114 667 | 106 440 | 8 227 | 4 296 |
Eastern Cape | 92 246 | 87 746 | 4 500 | 3 497 |
Northern Cape | 20 448 | 16 996 | 2 859 | 256 |
Free State | 53 898 | 39 447 | 14 451 | 1 361 |
KwaZulu-Natal | 121 528 | 112 236 | 9 292 | 3 148 |
North West | 32 006 | 28 589 | 3 417 | 393 |
Mpumalanga | 28 899 | 27 633 | 1 266 | 592 |
Gauteng | 225 734 | 204 722 | 21 012 | 4 673 |
Limpopo | 16 878 | 15 759 | 1 119 | 440 |
Unknown | 0 | |||
TOTAL | 706 304 | 639 568 | 66 736 | 18 656 |
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