As the number of new daily infections for COVID-19 in South Africa slowly increases, so do rumours of the country heading back to a stricter level of lockdown for the festive season.
While we hope these are only rumours given the chaos that lockdown has caused to date, it may be necessary if we are to prevent another wave of infections in SA.
With word on what will happen still to be shared, we can only look at the latest report from the National Department of Health (NDoH). To that end 2 562 new cases have been reported over the past 24 hours, pushing the country’s total number of infections to date to 787 702.
This report also confirms that 730 633 recoveries have also been recorded, translating to a recovery rate of 92.75 percent. The total number of tests conducted to date, however, have not been included in this latest batch of statistics.
Unfortunately, 38 new fatalities have also been recorded, with the total number of deaths related to COVID-19 in South Africa now sitting at 21 477. Once again the Eastern and Western Cape account for the most fatalities over the past 24 hours, with 17 and 13 respectively.
The full breakdown of COVID-19 in South Africa, sans updated recoveries and active cases, is as follows:
Provinces | Confirmed Cases | Recoveries | Active cases | Deaths |
Western Cape | 131 730 | 115 989 | 15 741 | 4 629 |
Eastern Cape | 126 520 | 114 808 | 11 712 | 4 606 |
Northern Cape | 23 185 | 20 674 | 2 859 | 313 |
Free State | 59 014 | 57 083 | 1 931 | 1 914 |
KwaZulu-Natal | 127 670 | 117 954 | 9 716 | 3 340 |
North West | 34 819 | 33 315 | 1 504 | 549 |
Mpumalanga | 31 360 | 30 291 | 1 069 | 614 |
Gauteng | 234 831 | 228 789 | 6 042 | 5 006 |
Limpopo | 18 573 | 17 730 | 843 | 506 |
Unknown | 0 | |||
TOTAL | 787 702 | 736 633 | 51 069 | 21 477 |
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 – United Nations COVID-19 Response on Unsplash]