By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD),reports 4,502 new COVID-19 cases that have been identified in South Africa, which brings the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 3,612,809. This increase represents an 11.3% positivity rate.
The majority of new cases today are from Gauteng (33%), followed by Western Cape (15%). Mpumalanga accounted for 12%; Kwa-Zulu Natal accounted for 11% and Limpopo accounted for 10%. North West accounted for 7%; Free State accounted for 6%; Eastern Cape accounted for 3%; and Northern Cape accounted for 2% of today’s new cases.
The proportion of positive new cases/total new tested today is 11.3%, which is higher than yesterday (8.8%). The 7-day average is 9.8% today, and is higher than yesterday (9.7%).
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 175 deaths and of these, 15 occurred in the past 24 – 48 hours. This brings the total fatalities to 95,463 to date.
Globally, during the week of 24 to 30 January 2022, the number of new COVID-19 cases remained similar to that reported during the previous week, while the number of new deaths increased by 9%.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), over 22 million new cases and over 59 000 new deaths were reported across all its six regions.
At the regional level, the majority of the new cases were logged in the Western Pacific (37%), the Eastern Mediterranean (24%) and the European (7%) regions.
Meanwhile, a decrease was reported by the region of the Americas (20%) and South-East Asia (8%), while the number of new cases reported in Africa remained similar to the previous week.
The highest numbers of new infections were recorded in the United States (3 279 226 new cases, a 34% decrease), France (2 357 129 new cases, similar to the previous week’s figures), India (1 855 258 new cases, a 12% decrease), Brazil (1 283 024 new cases, a 56% increase), and Germany (1 055 768 new cases, a 48% increase).
In addition, the highest number of new deaths were reported from the United States (13 558 new deaths, a 5% decrease), India (4682 new deaths, a 40% increase), Russia (4616 new deaths, similar to the previous week), Brazil (3321 new deaths, an 88% increase) and Italy (2618 new deaths, a 7% increase).
Globally, as of 1 February 2022, there have been 376 478 335 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 5 666 064 deaths, reported to the WHO.