By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) said in a statement that 17,493 new COVID-19 cases have been identified in South Africa, which brings the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 1,861,065. This increase represents a 24.9% positivity rate.
NICD continues to monitor the COVID-19 outbreak in order to inform the public health response. Dr Michelle Groome, Head of the Division of Public Health Surveillance and Response, warns that “the sharp rise in the reported daily COVID-19 cases is cause for concern, especially in the Gauteng Province where daily case numbers are exceeding those seen during the previous two waves.” She adds, “Ultimately, it is up to each one of us to play our role to reduce the spread of the virus by limiting our interaction with others, as much as possible, during this time”.
The majority of new cases today are from the Gauteng province (62%), followed by the Western Cape (10%), with 12 703 421 tests have been conducted in both public and private sectors.
The Institute added that a further 166 COVID-19 related deaths have been reported, bringing total fatalities to 59 258 to date. Prof Adrian Puren, Acting Executive Director of the NICD stresses that, the anecdotes from family and friends are real, “It is critical to manage our risks and the risk to others, especially the elderly by limiting contact with others and avoiding gatherings with those who are not part of our safe bubble”.
Hospital Admissions:
An increase of 622 hospital admissions have been reported in the past 24 hours.
Vaccine Update:
For updates on the national vaccine programme, click here.
Meanwhile according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), there are now 178 503 429 confirmed global cases, 3 872 457 deaths and 2 414 347 324 administered vaccine doses.
The WHO said the global numbers of cases and deaths continued to decrease over the past week, with over 2.5 million new weekly infections and over 64 000 deaths.
This represents a 6% and a 12% decrease respectively, compared to the previous week.
“While the number of cases reported globally now exceeds 177 million, last week saw the lowest weekly case incidence since February 2021.”
The organisation said this week, the Americas and Western Pacific regions logged numbers of new weekly cases similar to the previous week.
South-East Asia and the European regions reported a decline in the number of new infections.
In addition, Africa recorded a marked peak in the number of weekly cases as compared to the previous week.
“Globally, mortality remains high with more than 9 000 deaths reported each day over the past week,” said the WHO.
However, the number of new deaths reported in the past week decreased across all regions except for the Eastern Mediterranean and the African regions.
The highest numbers of new cases were reported from Brazil (505 344 new cases, 11% increase), India (441 976 new cases, 30% decrease), Colombia (193 907 new cases, 10% increase), Argentina (149 673 new cases, 16% decrease), and Russia (108 139 new cases, 31% increase).