Last night President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed the nation regarding COVID-19 in South Africa, focusing specifically on what level of lockdown the country would be moved to, with the past four weeks being at level 4 in order to curb the spread of the delta variant of the virus.
While the delta variant is proving more devastating than past variants of COVID-19, the President and his Cabinet chose to move the country to alert level 3 lockdown as of 22:00 last night. Key changes sees the curfew pushed back slightly, inter-provincial travel allowed once again, gatherings permitted under certain circumstances and the sale of alcohol during specific hours reestablished.
What impact this will have on the spread of the virus remains to be seen, but Ramaphosa did note that government is looking to ramp up its vaccine rollout efforts, with those aged 18 to 34 allowed to receive vaccines from 1st September onwards. As of 17:00 on 25th July, 6 384 382 jabs have been administered to date.
As for the latest report from the National Department of Health (NDoH) on COVID-19 in South Africa, the past 24 hours has seen 9 718 cases being recorded as the total climbs to 2 377 823. The recovery rate now sits at 90.87 percent, while 287 new fatalities have unfortunately been reported, pushing the death toll to 69 775.
The full breakdown of COVID-19 in South Africa is as follows:
Provinces | Confirmed Cases | Recoveries | Active cases | Deaths |
Western Cape | 382 224 | 336 681 | 30 887 | 14 656 |
Eastern Cape | 223 477 | 204 662 | 6 243 | 12 572 |
Northern Cape | 65 383 | 58 914 | 4 786 | 1 683 |
Free State | 126 276 | 108 305 | 12 340 | 5 631 |
KwaZulu-Natal | 385 385 | 354 034 | 20 028 | 11 323 |
North West | 123 827 | 97 800 | 23 146 | 2 881 |
Mpumalanga | 120 062 | 110 837 | 7 572 | 1 653 |
Gauteng | 843 204 | 790 174 | 36 408 | 16 622 |
Limpopo | 107 985 | 96 776 | 8 095 | 3 114 |
Unknown | 0 | |||
TOTAL | 2 377 823 | 2 158 183 | 149 505 | 70 135 |
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 Marcel Eberle on Unsplash]