This is no April Fool’s joke – we still have to deal with COVID-19 in South Africa.
As the country prepares for an Easter weekend under lockdown, it will be interesting to see how the newly announced restrictions by the President earlier this week will impact the infection rate. Looking at the latest report from the National Department of Health (NDoH), the number of new cases has picked up slightly.
This as 1 422 new cases have been recorded over the past 24 hours. The result sees the total number of infections for the country to date rise to 1 548 157. The department also confirms that over 9.87 million tests have been conducted to date, with 1 474 319 recoveries being recorded too. As has been the case over the past couple of weeks, the recovery rate remains at 95 percent.
Another statistic that is not moving as quickly as it should is the number of vaccines administered to date, which currently sits at 263 878, which is well shy of the 1.5 million that has been targeted during phase one of the rollout by the end of April.
The NDoH has also regrettably recorded 58 new fatalities, as the death toll related to COVID-19 in South Africa to date rises to 52 846.
The full breakdown of COVID-19 in South Africa is as follows:
Provinces | Confirmed Cases | Recoveries | Active cases | Deaths |
Western Cape | 282 830 | 266 247 | 16 583 | 11 458 |
Eastern Cape | 195 425 | 183 879 | 11 546 | 11 359 |
Northern Cape | 36 256 | 32 847 | 2 859 | 824 |
Free State | 83 327 | 78 076 | 5 251 | 3 648 |
KwaZulu-Natal | 334 027 | 318 309 | 15 718 | 10 199 |
North West | 63 828 | 60 218 | 3 610 | 1 478 |
Mpumalanga | 75 022 | 72 634 | 2 388 | 1 346 |
Gauteng | 414 261 | 401 457 | 12 804 | 10 318 |
Limpopo | 63 181 | 60 652 | 2 529 | 2 216 |
Unknown | 0 | |||
TOTAL | 1 548 157 | 1 474 319 | 73 838 | 52 846 |
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 Tamanna Rumee on Unsplash]