It is the second day of the country’s switch to lockdown level 2, and the coming weeks should prove interesting in terms of what the slightly relaxed regulations will mean for COVID-19 in South Africa.

At this stage the number of new daily infections appear to be sitting steady below the 3k mark, according to the latest statistics released by the National Department of Health (NDoH). To that end 2 258 new cases have been reported, bringing the country’s total number of infections to 592 144.

The recovery rate still remains quite high despite the ever increasing number of infections, with 458 468 recoveries recorded to date. This translates to a recovery rate of 82 percent, which is promising.

That said, the number of fatalities in the country continues to rise, having recently surpassed the 12k mark. More specifically the number of deaths 12 264, after 282 new fatalities were recorded over the past 24 hours.

Of the new deaths, the NDoH reports that 89 were in Gauteng, 66 in the Eastern Cape, 57 in KwaZulu-Natal, 34 in the Western Cape, 20 in the North West, 13 in Free State and three in the Northern Cape.

The full breakdown of COVID-19 in South Africa is as follows:

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 Jason Leung on Unsplash]