With the country now well past the one year mark as far as being under lockdown is concerned, thoughts regarding COVID-19 in South Africa have shifted from stopping the spread of the virus to getting as many people inoculated with vaccines as quickly as possible.
Unfortunately, very little headway is being made in this respect, and another adjustment of the Sisonke Protocol vaccine rollout is likely on the way. This as only 283 629 vaccines have been administered to date, which is drastically short of the 1.5 million that the National Department of Health (NDoH) outlined as a target for the end of April.
As such, many in the country are anxiously awaiting news on when new batches of vaccine will be landing in SA, as well as how the rollout efforts will be ramped up.
While we await any news on that front, the NDoH continues to release its daily COVID-19 reports, with the latest confirming that 1 366 new cases have been recorded over the past 24 hours as the total number of infections to date climbs to 1 554 975. It adds that 1 480 632 recoveries have also been recorded as the recovery rate remains at 95 percent.
Unfortunately 62 new fatalities have been reported by the department as well, with the North West claiming the most at 30. The result sees the death toll related to COVID-19 in South Africa increase to 53 173.
The full breakdown of COVID-19 in South Africa is as follows:
Provinces | Confirmed Cases | Recoveries | Active cases | Deaths |
Western Cape | 283 845 | 267 363 | 16 482 | 11 480 |
Eastern Cape | 195 575 | 183 985 | 11 590 | 11 373 |
Northern Cape | 36 758 | 33 058 | 2 859 | 830 |
Free State | 84 059 | 78 891 | 5 168 | 3 705 |
KwaZulu-Natal | 334 794 | 318 869 | 15 925 | 10 263 |
North West | 64 425 | 60 634 | 3 791 | 1 526 |
Mpumalanga | 75 834 | 73 512 | 2 322 | 1 359 |
Gauteng | 416 353 | 403 473 | 12 880 | 10 396 |
Limpopo | 63 332 | 60 847 | 2 485 | 2 241 |
Unknown | 0 | |||
TOTAL | 1 554 975 | 1 480 632 | 74 343 | 53 173 |
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