By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Covid-19 cases in Gauteng are surging at greater rates than the rest of the country, the health ministry said on Wednesday night.
Because of this, the ministry has encouraged residents of the province to adhere to non-pharmaceutical interventions, including wearing a mask, washing hands, sanitising and maintaining social distancing.
This came as the ministry announced that there were 5,782 new Covid-19 cases in the past 24 hours, taking the total number of cases to date to 1,675,013. The new infections came from 45,484 tests.
“This represents a 12.7% positivity rate. We will be monitoring this increase in positivity rate to see if it sustains and, meanwhile, urge all citizens to remain vigilant and adhere to non-pharmaceutical interventions, even if vaccinated,” the ministry said.
There were also 110 new Covid-19 related deaths recorded in the past 24 hours. Of these, nearly half (54) were in Gauteng, 16 were in the North West, 11 were in Limpopo, seven were in the Northern Cape, four each in both KZN and Mpumalanga and three in the Western Cape.
This means there have been 56,711 deaths linked to the coronavirus recorded to date.
The ministry reported that there had now been 1,117,569 people vaccinated across SA.
Meanwhile President Cyril Ramaphosa says despite several challenges that have delayed the vaccine roll-out, the public vaccination drive is now gathering pace and one million South Africans have been vaccinated so far.
The President said this when he led the debate on The Presidency budget vote on Wednesday.
“Within the last 48 hours, we passed a significant milestone. More than one million people in South Africa have now received a vaccine dose.
“As we accelerate the roll-out of vaccines, we continue to engage various manufacturers to ensure a reliable and diverse supply of vaccines.
“We therefore welcome the news that the World Health Organisation has validated the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use,” he said.
The President said this is a crucial step that should allow the country’s own health products regulatory authority, SAHPRA, to expeditiously consider the application from Sinovac.
“As a country and as a government, we have therefore been involved in efforts across Africa and in the broader international community to forge a common response.
“During our chairship of the African Union, we led the development and implementation of a continent-wide COVID-19 strategy.
“We appointed special envoys to mobilise funding for the continental response, and actively lobbied the G20, the international financial institutions and other international bodies for comprehensive financial support and debt relief for African countries.”