By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD),reports 1,571 new COVID-19 cases that have been identified in South Africa, which brings the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 3,693,532.
The majority of new cases today are from Gauteng (34%), followed by Western Cape (24%). Kwa-Zulu Natal accounted for 20%; North West accounted for 6%; Mpumalanga accounted for 5%; Free State accounted for 4%; Eastern Cape and Limpopo each accounted for 3% respectively; and Northern Cape accounted for 1% of today’s new cases.
This increase represents a 5.8% positivity rate.
The proportion of positive new cases/total new tested today is 5.8%, which is lower than yesterday (7.5%). The 7-day average is 6.2% today, which is the same as yesterday (6.2%)
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 3 deaths and of these, 1 occurred in the past 24 – 48 hours. This brings the total fatalities to 99,712 to date.
Meanwhile South Africans who got jabbed with a J&J Covid-19 vaccine could become eligible for a third booster shot.
This is according to a circular from the Department of Health signed off by Director General Sandile Buthelezi.
While no official announcements about changes to the country’s vaccine strategy have been made, the circular states that the booster shot can be mixed with options limited to the J&J and Pfizer vaccine.
Recipients would be eligible to get the third booster 90 days after the second one.
To date, over 35 million Covid-19 vaccines for both Pfizer and J&J have been administered in the country.
Covid-19 is continuing to spread around the world, with more than 447 million confirmed cases and more than six million deaths reported across almost 200 countries.
The US, India and Brazil have seen the highest number of confirmed cases, followed by France, the UK and Russia.