Over the past 24 hours, the country has had to deal with increased bouts of loadshedding as the power utility once again proves incapable of meeting our electricity needs as Winter hits. On top of this, there has also been a spike in new cases for COVID-19 in South Africa.
This as 8 881 new cases have been reported over the past 24 hours, which marks an increase of more than double compared to the previous day. The result sees the total number of infections recorded to date rise to 1 712 939.
Should this latest surge be sustained, the National Department of Health (NDoH) may be forced to declare an official third wave for the entire country, which it has held off from doing up until now. What this means for the second phase of the Sisonke Protocol vaccine rollout remains to be seen.
Speaking of which, the latest numbers show that 1 525 271 vaccines have been administered to date, with 1 043 278 of these being the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine.
Looking at the other key statistics, the recovery rate has dropped to 92.7 percent, with 1 589 501 recoveries reported so far. Unfortunately 127 new fatalities have also been recorded, pushing the death toll related to COVID-19 in South Africa to 57 310.
The full breakdown of COVID-19 in South Africa is as follows:
Provinces | Confirmed Cases | Recoveries | Active cases | Deaths |
Western Cape | 297 809 | 280 799 | 1 996 | 11 900 |
Eastern Cape | 199 165 | 186 148 | 210 | 11 688 |
Northern Cape | 53 433 | 44 472 | 3 554 | 1 196 |
Free State | 105 411 | 91 841 | 2 398 | 4 503 |
KwaZulu-Natal | 341 871 | 325 464 | 5 041 | 10 548 |
North West | 79 982 | 70 085 | 2 881 | 1 996 |
Mpumalanga | 84 510 | 81 105 | 991 | 1 464 |
Gauteng | 484 116 | 446 765 | 3 231 | 11 519 |
Limpopo | 66 642 | 62 822 | 295 | 2 496 |
Unknown | 0 | |||
TOTAL | 1 712 939 | 1 589 501 | 20 597 | 57 310 |
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 Omer Sonido on Unsplash]