This week is shaping up to be a crucial one in terms of the fight against COVID-19 in South Africa. This as last week’s growing number of new daily infections will be examined with greater scrutiny as the National Department of Health (NDoH) assesses whether the country is in the midst of a third wave of infections.

Looking at the latest report from the NDoH, only 1 129 new cases have been recorded over the past 24 hours, which is lower than what it was during the previous day. It remains to be seen, however, if those numbers pick up as the week progresses, and if so, by how much.

For now, the total number of infections recorded to date now sits at 1 597 724 as over 10.9 million tests have been conducted to date. The department has also administered 395 230 vaccines to date, as the Sisonke Protocol readies to enter the second phase on 17th May. As such, the NDoH will need to significantly ramp up its efforts in coming days.

The recovery rate remains at 95 percent, with 1 517 350 recoveries have been recorded so far, serving as the only positive among the latest figures.

Unfortunately though, 90 new fatalities have been recorded too. The NDoH confirms that the Eastern Cape has 14, Gauteng has five, Mpumalanga registered six, the North West contributes 33, the Northern Cape has 13 and the Western Cape reported 19. The result sees the death toll related to COVID-19 in South Africa rise to 54 825.

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 Mohammad Shahhosseini on Unsplash]