As South Africans headed back to work yesterday following a much needed long weekend, we were concerned what the combination of level 1 lockdown and four days of increased socialising would have on the daily infection rate for COVID-19 in South Africa.

According to the latest statistics provided by the National Department of Health (NDoH), it looks like the impact has been minimal, with 903 new cases being recorded over the past 24 hours. This means that the total number of infections for the country to date now sit at 671 669.

While the low number is pleasing to see, it should be noted that daily infection rates usually start off slowly at the beginning of the week, before ramping up.

Along with the new cases, the NDoH has also reported on the number of recoveries in SA, with it now being 604 478. This translates to a recovery rate of 89.99 percent. Although a fraction less than yesterday’s rate of 90 percent, it does represent a slide, so hopefully we can get the recovery rate back up beyond that crucial threshold in coming days and weeks.

Looking at the other figures provided by the NDoH, the number of fatalities has climbed to 16 586. This comes after 188 new fatalities were recorded, but at the time of writing, the breakdown for each province regarding these additional deaths have not been disclosed.

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 Tetiana SHYSHKINA on Unsplash]