The country is set for a cold weekend and, while that means that everyone will be staying indoors, the recent threat of loadshedding has added even greater frustration to level 4 lockdown. On Sunday, the President is expected to brief the nation on the state of COVID-19 in South Africa, but looking at the statistics over the past two weeks, the likelihood of moving out of level 4 looks slim.
The past 24 hours, for example, has seen 14 858 cases and 433 deaths being recorded by the National Department of Health (NDoH), with the latter statistics proving the most concerning. Like many parts of the globe, the delta variant of the virus has proved devastating, and the world could soon find itself in the same spot it was 18 months ago.
While we await the outcome of the delta variant on a global scale, locally it has seen the death toll rise to 68 625 to date, with the total number of infections recorded so far climbing to 2 342 330.
As for the recovery rate, it remains relatively high at 90.1 percent, but the high daily death toll puts a dampener on any silver linings.
Looking at the vaccine rollout, it is finally starting to gain momentum, with the NDoH reporting earlier this week that over 2 million South Africans have been inoculated. As of 17:00 on 22nd July, 6 085 108 vaccines have been administered to date, with 238 020 over the past 24 hours. As the Celsius continues to drop, we hope South Africans will brave the cold in order to receive their jabs.
The full breakdown of COVID-19 in South Africa is as follows:
| Provinces | Confirmed Cases | Recoveries | Active cases | Deaths |
| Western Cape | 374 260 | 327 569 | 32 346 | 14 345 |
| Eastern Cape | 221 345 | 202 550 | 6 300 | 12 495 |
| Northern Cape | 64 488 | 58 296 | 4 570 | 1 622 |
| Free State | 124 951 | 107 120 | 12 299 | 5 532 |
| KwaZulu-Natal | 380 811 | 351 554 | 18 061 | 11 196 |
| North West | 121 359 | 96 116 | 22 441 | 2 802 |
| Mpumalanga | 117 205 | 106 493 | 9 096 | 1 616 |
| Gauteng | 832 383 | 767 809 | 48 671 | 15 903 |
| Limpopo | 105 528 | 92 313 | 10 101 | 3 114 |
| Unknown | 0 | |||
| TOTAL | 2 342 330 | 2 109 820 | 163 885 | 68 625 |
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 Fusion Medical Animation on Unsplash]
