As we enter the weekend, the number of new daily infections for COVID-19 in South Africa is on the rise. In the latest report from the National Department of Health (NDoH), it’s confirmed that 3 641 new cases have been recorded over the past 24 hours. While that is not enough to designate it a fully blown third wave for the country, it does mark consecutive days where the number of new infections surpassed 3k.
As such, if it continues to increase over the coming days, we may very well find ourselves in the midst of a third wave.
It is why the second phase of the Sisonke Protocol vaccine rollout is so crucial. To date this week, phase two has seen 116 741 vaccines administered, with these being the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine. As for the total number of vaccines administered to date, that now sits at 597 406.
Looking at the rest of the report, the total number of infections recorded so far is now at 1 625 003, with over 11.24 million tests conducted to date. The recovery rate has also dropped slightly again to 94.2 percent, as 1 531 993 recoveries have been reported by the NDoH.
The department has unfortunately had to report that 61 new fatalities have also been recorded. Of the new 61, Limpopo, Gauteng and the Northern Cape account for the most at 19, 17 and 12 respectively. This sees the death toll related to COVID-19 in South Africa increase to 55 568.
The full breakdown of COVID-19 in South Africa is as follows:
| Provinces | Confirmed Cases | Recoveries | Active cases | Deaths |
| Western Cape | 290 672 | 276 962 | 1 996 | 11 730 |
| Eastern Cape | 196 862 | 184 724 | 210 | 11 635 |
| Northern Cape | 46 068 | 38 248 | 3 554 | 1 006 |
| Free State | 96 244 | 85 611 | 2 398 | 4 110 |
| KwaZulu-Natal | 338 473 | 323 690 | 5 041 | 10 474 |
| North West | 72 106 | 65 145 | 2 881 | 1 844 |
| Mpumalanga | 80 545 | 77 749 | 991 | 1 424 |
| Gauteng | 439 391 | 418 044 | 3 231 | 10 965 |
| Limpopo | 64 642 | 61 820 | 295 | 2 380 |
| Unknown | 0 | |||
| TOTAL | 1 625 003 | 1 531 993 | 20 597 | 55 568 |
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 Kojo Kwarteng on Unsplash]
