There has been yet another tough day with regard to COVID-19 in South Africa. This as the latest report from the National Department of Health (NDoH) has confirmed that 21 427 cases and 411 fatalities have been recorded over the past 24 hours during the third wave. It is the latter figure which is most concerning as more people in the country are dying as a result of the delta variant of the virus.

With the two-week long level 4 lockdown set to be looked at come 11th July, it is increasingly likely that stronger measures may need to be enforced in order to curb the current third wave.

The aforementioned report says the total number of cases recorded to date has now reached 2 112 336, with more than 13.61 million tests having been conducted to date. The death toll related to COVID-19 in South Africa has also climbed to 63 039 based on the latest figures.

As for other key statistics, the recovery rate is now 87.8 percent, with 1 853 804 recoveries being reported.

These spike in latest figures make the vaccine rollout all the more important, but progress on that front remains slow. As of 17:00 on 7th July, the NDoH says 3 819 730 vaccines have been administered to date, with the vast majority of these being the first jab of Pfizer vaccine. As such, a true reflection of the population immunity is unknown at this stage.

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 CDC on Unsplash]