Given the chaos caused by riots and lotting this week, we may be forgiven for losing sight on the fight against COVID-19 in South Africa. It remains to be seen when the riots will be brought under control and indeed what impact they will have on the vaccine rollout efforts, but for now there are no signs that we have been able to bring the spread of the virus down.

This as the latest report from the National Department of Health (NDoH) confirms 17 489 new cases have been recorded over the past 24 hours, pushing the total number of infections recorded to date to 2 236 805. The number of newly recorded fatalities also remains high, with 453 being reported as the death toll related to COVID-19 in South Africa climbs to 65 595.

Consequently, the recovery rate now sits at 88.1 percent as 1 970 516 recoveries have been recorded.

As for the vaccine rollout, the latest report as of 17:00 on 14th July says 4 688 779 vaccines have been administered to date, with 146 230 jabs given over the past 24 hours. With those 35 years and older now capable of registering to receive vaccines, hopefully the number of people vaccinated each day will increase, as it has remained relatively slow up until now.

The full breakdown of COVID-19 in South Africa is as follows:

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 Mat Napo on Unsplash]