This week the biggest bane in our citizens’ existence – stage 4 loadshedding – is back, bringing with it growing frustration as we continue to fight the spread of COVID-19 in South Africa.

At the time of writing, the loadshedding is expected to end over the course of the coming weekend, but as we have seen over more than a decade with Eskom handling the country’s power needs, there is little hope to be taken from official statements that the state-owned entity makes.

As such, we will likely need to gird our loins for another tough weekend under lockdown and loadshedding as we prepare for the local government elections next week Monday on 1st November.

Shifting back to COVID-19 in South Africa, the latest report from the National Department of Heath (NDoH) confirms that 472 cases have been reported in the past 24 hours as the total number of infections reported to date climbs to 2 920 581.

The department also notes that 62 fatalities have been reported too, as the death toll related to the spread of the virus rises to 89 049.

As for the vaccine rollout, the past 24 hours has seen 191 264 jabs were administered in the past 24 hours, which is pleasing to see as loadshedding is not hampering capacity on that front.

As of 17:00 on 27th October, a total of 21 924 915 vaccines have been administered in SA.

The full outlook for COVID-19 in South Africa follows on below:

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:

• 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 Dimitri Karastelev on Unsplash]