The citizens of this country continue to be tested this week, as the current drop in temperature coupled with loadshedding has proved difficult and frustrating for most. Those issues, however, cannot distract from COVID-19 in South Africa, which has seen an increase in newly reported cases over the past couple of days.
To that end the latest report from the National Department of Health (NDoH) confirms that 5 361 new cases have been recorded over the past 24 hours, with the previous day also peaking above 5k new cases. The result sees the total number of infections recorded in SA to date climb to 1 680 373, as more than 11.75 million tests have been conducted so far.
Added to this is the recovery rate continuing to drop slightly each day, with it currently sitting at 93.3 percent as 1 567 635 recoveries have been recorded to date.
As for the vaccine rollout, which is still not moving as quickly as some are hoping given the third wave of infections in a number of provinces, the NDoH says 1 117 569 vaccines have been administered to date. It is, however, important to note that 637 801 of these are the first dose of Pfizer vaccine, which will require a second dose to be administered within six weeks of the first.
Unfortunately 54 new fatalities have also been reported over the past 24 hours, with Gauteng, the Western Cape and the Free State reporting the most at 17, 14 and 12 respectively. This sees the death toll related to COVID-19 in South Africa rise to 56 765.
The full breakdown of COVID-19 in South Africa is as follows:
Provinces | Confirmed Cases | Recoveries | Active cases | Deaths |
Western Cape | 295 048 | 279 217 | 1 996 | 11 837 |
Eastern Cape | 198 239 | 185 504 | 210 | 11 668 |
Northern Cape | 51 792 | 42 067 | 3 554 | 1 129 |
Free State | 102 786 | 89 891 | 2 398 | 4 392 |
KwaZulu-Natal | 340 393 | 325 245 | 5 041 | 10 523 |
North West | 77 398 | 69 003 | 2 881 | 1 949 |
Mpumalanga | 83 243 | 79846 | 991 | 1 456 |
Gauteng | 465 668 | 434 452 | 3 231 | 11 339 |
Limpopo | 65 806 | 62 410 | 295 | 2 472 |
Unknown | 0 | |||
TOTAL | 1 680 373 | 1 567 635 | 20 597 | 56 765 |
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 Jievani Weerasinghe on Unsplash]