This morning the country awoke to the unwelcome news that stage 2 loadshedding would be a fixture for the remainder of the week. With a cold front already impacting vast regions of the country, the news comes at the most inopportune time. Exacerbating matters is how this will affect the fight against COVID-19 in South Africa and in particular vaccine rollout efforts.
According to the latest report from the National Department of Health (NDoH) sans infographic, 1 045 104 vaccines have been administered to date, with 565 336 of these being the first dose of Pfizer vaccine. With Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize eyeing five million people to be vaccinated by the end of June, efforts by the NDoH need to be ramped up.
Looking at the other key figures in the report, 3 614 new cases for COVID-19 in South Africa have been recorded over the past 24 hours, pushing the total number of infections recorded to date to 1 669 231.
The department also confirms that over 11.66 million tests have been conducted to date, with the recovery rate now sitting at 93.7 percent as 1 563 719 recoveries have been reported so far.
Unfortunately, 95 new fatalities have been reported too, with Gauteng and the Free State accounting for the most at 44 and 27 respectively. These are also two of four provinces currently in the midst of the third wave of infections. The death toll related to COVID-19 in South Africa to date has since risen to 56 601 as a result of the newly recorded fatalities.
The full breakdown of COVID-19 in South Africa is as follows:
Provinces | Confirmed Cases | Recoveries | Active cases | Deaths |
Western Cape | 294 067 | 278 597 | 1 996 | 11 820 |
Eastern Cape | 197 900 | 185 461 | 210 | 11 664 |
Northern Cape | 51 041 | 41 653 | 3 554 | 1 119 |
Free State | 101 856 | 89 409 | 2 398 | 4 369 |
KwaZulu-Natal | 340 037 | 325 180 | 5 041 | 10 515 |
North West | 76 311 | 68 466 | 2 881 | 1 933 |
Mpumalanga | 82 651 | 79716 | 991 | 1452 |
Gauteng | 459 911 | 432 939 | 3 231 | 11 268 |
Limpopo | 65 457 | 62 298 | 295 | 2 461 |
Unknown | 0 | |||
TOTAL | 1 669 231 | 1 563 719 | 20 597 | 56 601 |
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 Robert Wiedemann on Unsplash]