This morning South Africans woke up to the welcome news that Eskom is not anticipating any loadshedding this weekend. While it remains to be seen if the power utility can keep to that estimation, the country still has a rising number of coronavirus infections to deal with, as the current total for positive cases of COVID-19 in South Africa sits at 599 940.
This according to the latest statistics revealed by the National Department of Health (NDoH), as 3 880 new infections were reported over the past 24 hours.
As such the 600 000 case threshold will likely be surpassed later today, if it has not already at the time of writing. Still the NDoH is pointing to the high recovery rate as a source of hope given the current circumstances. To that end 497 169 recoveries have been reported, which translates to a recovery rate of 82.86 percent.
While this is good news, there is still the number of fatalities to contend with, as 12 618 is the new total.
In terms of provinces with the most infections, not much has changed among the top four, with Gauteng accounting for 202 955, KwaZulu-Natal at 108 080, the Western Cape with 103 616 and the Eastern Cape with 84 586.
The full breakdown of COVID-19 in South Africa is as follows:
Province | Confirmed Cases | Recoveries | Active cases | Deaths |
Western Cape | 103 616 | 92 892 | 10 724 | 3 688 |
Eastern Cape | 84 586 | 79 947 | 4 639 | 2 696 |
Northern Cape | 8 575 | 5 154 | 2 859 | 100 |
Free State | 33 665 | 19 779 | 13 886 | 567 |
KwaZulu-Natal | 108 080 | 93 094 | 14 986 | 1 824 |
North West | 23 868 | 16 948 | 6 920 | 214 |
Mpumalanga | 22 459 | 19 530 | 2 929 | 214 |
Gauteng | 202 955 | 169 299 | 33 656 | 3 144 |
Limpopo | 12 086 | 10 526 | 1 560 | 171 |
Unknown | 50 | |||
TOTAL | 599 940 | 507 169 | 92 771 | 12 618 |
As always, in order to stay up to date with the spread of COVID-19 in South Africa and abroad, we advise the following materials and platforms:
- Dr Zweli Mkhize on Twitter
- COVID-19 Connect on WhatsApp – add 0600 123 456 as a contact and say “Hi”.
- World Health Organisation
- SA Coronavirus website
- SA Government
- SA Presidency
[Image – Photo by Bret Kavanaugh on Unsplash]