By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) reports 19,506 new COVID-19 cases that have been identified in South Africa, which brings the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 1,973,972. This increase represents a 27.6 % positivity rate.
The Gauteng province accounts for the majority of new cases (57%), followed by the Western Cape (11%) and North West (7%) provinces.
NICD said a further 383 COVID-19 related deaths have been reported, bringing total fatalities to 60,647 to date.
Hospital Admissions
An increase of 698 hospital admissions have been reported in the past 24 hours.
Vaccine Update
For updates on the national vaccine programme, click here.
Meanwhile the department of health says there is no data yet to assess the efficacy of the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccine against Delta variant.
On Wednesday night,deputy director-general, Anban Pillay briefed Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Health on the department’s vaccine rollout programme.
“Delta is now rapidly becoming the dominant SARS-CoV-2 variant in many countries around the world, including South Africa. There is now good evidence that Delta is more transmissible than previously circulating viruses and other variants of concern and interest,” he said.
South Africa is in the midst of a third wave of Covid-19 infections and Gauteng is responsible for roughly two thirds of the country’s cases. The emergence of the Delta variant in the country is particularly of concern because it is more transmissible than earlier variants.
It was expected the J&J vaccine would perform similar to AstraZeneca, he said, adding the department was still awaiting studies on it.
Pillay added vaccines could only be considered for procurement after registration by the SA Health Products Regulatory Authority (Sahpra).