By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) reports that 13,155 new COVID-19 cases have been identified in South Africa in the past 24 hours, representing a 23.7% positivity rate and bringing the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 1,823,319.
The majority of new cases today are from Gauteng (66%), followed by Western Cape (9%), North West accounted for 6%; KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga each accounted for 4%; Eastern Cape, Free State and Limpopo each accounted for 3%; and Northern Cape accounted for 2% of today’s cases.
NICD said a further 112 COVID-19 related deaths have been reported, bringing total fatalities to 58,702 to date.
The institute added that a further 611 hospital admissions have been reported in the past 24 hours and 12 549 484 tests have been conducted in both public and private sectors since the last report.
Hospital Admissions:
A further 611 hospital admissions have been reported in the past 24 hours.
Vaccine Update:
For updates on the national vaccine programme, click here.
Meanwhile when the global pandemic began more than a year ago, many predicted African countries would suffer devastating losses.
And there have been more than 5 million cases and nearly 140,000 deaths on the continent.
That only represents less than 3 percent of the total global COVID-19 cases.
And a fraction of the continent’s 1.3 billion people.
But there have been worrying signs in recent weeks, with more contagious variants driving up infections in many African countries.
Cases in some regions have more than doubled in just the past week. The number of deaths has gone up as well.
Leaders in Africa are now urgently appealing for more vaccines.
The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide has surpassed 178 million, with more than 3.8 million deaths, according to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University.