As we begin another cold week under lockdown and the potential of loadshedding, the country is forced to push on with its fight against COVID-19 in South Africa and vaccinate as many people as possible during Winter. To that end, the total number of infections recorded to date according to the latest report from the National Department of Health currently sits at 1 699 849.
This as 3 285 new cases have been recorded over the past 24 hours, which is a decent amount less than we have been seeing in recent days. Whether that is simply a result of it only being the early stages of the week remains to be seen.
The other key statistics in the report confirm over 11.89 million tests have been conducted to date, while the recovery rate has stayed the same from the previous day at 93 percent as 1 581 540 recoveries have been reported so far.
As for phase two of the Sisonke Protocol vaccine rollout, 1 350 245 vaccines have been administered to date, with 870 477 of these being the first dose of Pfizer vaccine, which means a second dose will be needed 42 days after the first dose was given.
Unfortunately 89 new fatalities have been recorded as well over the past 24 hours. Once again, Gauteng and the Free State registered the most of the new fatalities as 25 and 23 respectively, followed by Limpopo at 17. This sees the death toll related to COVID-19 in South Africa rise to 57 063.
The full breakdown of COVID-19 in South Africa is as follows:
| Provinces | Confirmed Cases | Recoveries | Active cases | Deaths |
| Western Cape | 296 666 | 279 984 | 1 996 | 11 881 |
| Eastern Cape | 198 739 | 185 995 | 210 | 11 673 |
| Northern Cape | 52 968 | 42 630 | 3 554 | 1 166 |
| Free State | 104 373 | 90 662 | 2 398 | 4 475 |
| KwaZulu-Natal | 341 175 | 325 296 | 5 041 | 10 535 |
| North West | 79 011 | 70 077 | 2 881 | 1 949 |
| Mpumalanga | 84 073 | 80 809 | 991 | 1 459 |
| Gauteng | 476 514 | 443 378 | 3 231 | 11 436 |
| Limpopo | 66 330 | 62 749 | 295 | 2 489 |
| Unknown | 0 | |||
| TOTAL | 1 699 849 | 1 581 580 | 20 597 | 57 063 |
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 Markus Winkler on Unsplash]
