Last night President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed the nation to provide an update regarding the fight against COVID-19 in South Africa. With the country currently battling a third wave of infections, the president announced that we would be moving to an adjusted alert level 4 lockdown as of 28th June. Said lockdown level will be applicable for the next 14 days and potentially end come 11th July.
The reason for the move is a result of new daily infections continuing to remain high, almost reaching the figures from the second wave. Exacerbating matters is the fact that the delta variant of the virus, believed to have originated in India, is now being found in some provinces in South Africa. Gauteng in particular has been highlighted, which is why one of the level 4 restrictions will so no non-essential travel in and out of the province for the next 14 days.
Whether the new lockdown level restrictions, which include a ban on all gatherings, alcohol sales and a new curfew from 21:00 until 4:00, will have the desired effect, remains to be seen.
Either way, the latest statistics make for grim reading. To that end the National Department of Health (NDoH) says 15 036 new cases have been recorded over the past 24 hours, pushing the total number of infections to 1 928 897. The recovery rate has also dropped to 88.7 percent, while 122 new fatalities have been recorded as the death toll related to COVID-19 in South Africa climbs to 59 900.
As for the vaccine rollout, which continues to move slowly compared to some other nations on the African continent, as of 17:00 on 27th June, 2 205 228 vaccines have been administered to date, with the vast majority being the first dose of Pfizer vaccine.
The full breakdown of COVID-19 in South Africa is as follows:
| Provinces | Confirmed Cases | Recoveries | Active cases | Deaths |
| Western Cape | 318 490 | 289 804 | 16 414 | 12 272 |
| Eastern Cape | 205 545 | 189 654 | 4 049 | 11 842 |
| Northern Cape | 58 537 | 49 707 | 7 464 | 1 366 |
| Free State | 113 317 | 97 317 | 11 137 | 4 863 |
| KwaZulu-Natal | 351 916 | 329 093 | 12 162 | 10 661 |
| North West | 93 071 | 77 776 | 13 060 | 2 235 |
| Mpumalanga | 92 914 | 85 933 | 5 473 | 1 508 |
| Gauteng | 620 956 | 524 202 | 84 153 | 12 601 |
| Limpopo | 74 151 | 66 513 | 5 086 | 2 552 |
| Unknown | 0 | |||
| TOTAL | 1 928 897 | 1 709 999 | 158 998 | 59 900 |
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 Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash]
