By Lehlohonolo Lehana.

The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), reports 889 new COVID-19 cases that have been identified in South Africa, which brings the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 3,722,954. 

The majority of new cases today are from Gauteng (42%), followed by Kwa-Zulu Natal (25%). Western Cape accounted for 19%; Eastern Cape accounted for 5%; Free State accounted for 4%; Mpumalanga accounted for 3%; North West accounted for 2%; Limpopo accounted for 1%; and Northern Cape accounted for <1% of today’s new cases. 

This increase represents a 5.3% positivity rate.

The proportion of positive new cases/total new tested today is 5.3%, and is lower than yesterday (5.4%). The 7-day average is 5.7% today, and is lower than yesterday (5.8%).

Due to the ongoing audit exercise by the National Department of Health (NDoH), there may be a backlog of COVID-19 mortality cases reported. Today, the NDoH reports 4 deaths and of these, 1 occurred in the past 24 – 48 hours. This brings the total fatalities to 100,050 to date.

Meanwhile a 60-year-old man allegedly had himself vaccinated against COVID-19 dozens of times in Germany in order to sell forged vaccination cards with real vaccine batch numbers to people not wanting to get vaccinated themselves.

The man from the eastern Germany city of Magdeburg, whose name was not released in line with German privacy rules, is said to have received up to 90 shots against COVID-19 at vaccination centers in the eastern state of Saxony for months until criminal police caught him this month, the German news agency dpa reported Sunday.

The suspect was not detained but is under investigation for unauthorized issuance of vaccination cards and document forgery, dpa reported.

He was caught at a vaccination center in Eilenburg in Saxony when he showed up for a COVID-19 shot for the second day in a row. Police confiscated several blank vaccination cards from him and initiated criminal proceedings.

It was not immediately clear what impact the approximately 90 shots of COVID-19 vaccines, which were from different brands, had on the man's personal health.

German police have conducted many raids in connection with forgery of vaccination passports in recent months. Many COVID-19 deniers refuse to get vaccinated in Germany, but at the same time want to have the coveted COVID-19 passports that make access to public life and venues such as restaurants, theaters, swimming pools or workplaces much easier.