Last week, after two days where the daily infection rate dropped below the 10k mark for COVID-19 in South Africa, the National Department of Health (NDoH) was hoping that trend would continue in the following days.
Unfortunately it did not, rising again to the 11k mark, but the latest statistics from the NDoH has once again given government cause for optimism that it is slowing the spread of COVID-19 in South Africa.
This as the number of reported cases appears to have slowed down slightly in some of the worst impacted provinces – namely Gauteng, the Western Cape and Eastern Cape.
“While it may be too soon to draw firm conclusions, this suggests that the prevention measures that South Africans have implemented are having an effect,” President Cyril Ramaphosa noted in a statement over the weekend.
We have to concur with the president that it is indeed too early to make such a call, but recent numbers released by the NDoH do show a drop in infections. To that end the past 24 hours has seen 8 195 new cases being reported, bringing the total to 503 290.
Other key figures include 342 461 people having already recovered from the coronavirus and 152 676 cases that are currently active. Perhaps the most crucial figure has seen 8 366 fatalities recorded to date, with the president also highlighting the low mortality rate.
“The case fatality rate – which is the number of deaths as a proportion of confirmed cases – remains at 1.6%, significantly lower than the global average,” he explained.
Despite being low, whether such a high number of deaths is acceptable will need to be discussed and looked at once we’ve exited the COVID-19 era.
The full breakdown of COVID-19 in South Africa is as follows:
Province | Confirmed Cases | Recoveries | Active cases | Deaths |
Western Cape | 96 838 | 80 956 | 15 882 | 3 117 |
Eastern Cape | 79 410 | 68 652 | 10 758 | 1 769 |
Northern Cape | 5 131 | 1 874 | 3 257 | 36 |
Free State | 23 099 | 8 897 | 14 202 | 205 |
KwaZulu-Natal | 82 300 | 37 127 | 45 173 | 875 |
North West | 19 961 | 8 751 | 11 210 | 81 |
Mpumalanga | 15 120 | 8 674 | 6 446 | 78 |
Gauteng | 180 532 | 126 784 | 53 748 | 2 115 |
Limpopo | 9 044 | 5 512 | 3 532 | 90 |
Unknown | 50 | |||
TOTAL | 511 485 | 347 227 | 164 258 | 8 366 |
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 Adam Nieścioruk on Unsplash]