The past 24 hours has seen the number of newly recorded fatalities rise sharply. According to the latest report from the National Department of Health (NDoH) on COVID-19 in South Africa, 553 deaths have been recorded, which nearly doubles the number we saw earlier in the week.

The result sees the death toll related to COVID-19 in South Africa rise to 77 993, placing even greater importance on the vaccine rollout, which has seen a worryingly low turn out in past weeks.

To that end, only 181 862 vaccines have been administered in the past 24 hours. As of 17:00 on 17th August, a total of 9 753 138 vaccines have been administered while an estimated 4 332 667 people have been inoculated.

At this stage there is also no word on when registrations will be opened up to all adults in SA, which was something that the NDoH was in talks about.

Looking at the rest of the latest report, 10 685 new cases have been recorded in the past 24 hours, pushing the total number of infections to date to 2 624 254. The recovery rate has remained stable throughout the past week though, sitting at 91.2 percent.

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:

• 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]