Next week Monday, the 22nd of March, the country will be observing Human Rights Day. While the prospect of a long weekend would normally be good news, as loadshedding and lockdown continues, there is still COVID-19 in South Africa to contend with. Exacerbating matters is the upcoming Easter weekend, which is feared to be a potential spark for a third waves of infections locally.
While we await to see what measures, if any, will be in place, the number of new daily infections seems to be following a familiar pattern of late.
This as only 1 464 new cases have been recorded over the past 24 hours, pushing the total number of infections to date to 1 533 961.
The National Department of Health’s (NDoH) latest report also confirms that over 9.55 million tests have been conducted to date, with 1 459 894 recoveries being recorded as well. Again, the recovery rate remains at 95 percent, which it has done for this entire week so far.
As for vaccines, the NDoH says 177 275 have been administered to date, as the department continues at a slow pace on that front.
Unfortunately, 90 new fatalities have been recorded over the past 24 hours, with Limpopo accounting for a little over a third of new deaths at 33. The result sees the death toll to date related to COVID-19 in South Africa increase to 51 724.
The full breakdown of COVID-19 in South Africa is as follows:
Provinces | Confirmed Cases | Recoveries | Active cases | Deaths |
Western Cape | 280 674 | 264 336 | 16 338 | 11 391 |
Eastern Cape | 194 659 | 183 038 | 11 621 | 11 336 |
Northern Cape | 35 213 | 32 150 | 2 859 | 791 |
Free State | 81 821 | 76 521 | 5 300 | 3 537 |
KwaZulu-Natal | 332 445 | 316 307 | 16 138 | 9 892 |
North West | 62 520 | 59 055 | 3 465 | 1 323 |
Mpumalanga | 73 416 | 70 953 | 2 463 | 1 316 |
Gauteng | 410 392 | 397 432 | 12 960 | 10 098 |
Limpopo | 62 821 | 60 102 | 2 719 | 2 040 |
Unknown | 0 | |||
TOTAL | 1 533 961 | 1 459 894 | 74 067 | 51 724 |
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