As we approach the weekend and the prospect of another cold front, many people will be standing in line to receive their first jabs for COVID-19 in South Africa after those 18 years and older were made eligible to do so by Cabinet the previous week.

The vaccination effort has increased significantly since the announcement, but more still needs to be done if population immunity is to be reached.

On the backdrop of this, the number of new cases and deaths in the country shows no signs of slowing down. This as 12 771 infections and 357 fatalities have been reported in the past 24 hours, according to the National Department of Health’s (NDoH) latest figures.

Looking at the other figures in the report, the total number of infections recorded to date now sits at 2 734 973, with the death toll rising to 80 826. The NDoH also confirms that over 16.22 million test have been conducted so far, while the recovery rate remains at 90.9 percent with 2 485 108 recoveries reported to date.

As for the vaccine rollout, the past 24 hours has seen 265 484 vaccines administered, with 11 648 851 vaccines administered in total as of 17:00 on 26th August. An estimated 5 450 253 people are now inoculated, with some ways to go until the country can achieve population immunity before a predicted fourth wave hits in December.

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 fikry anshor on Unsplash]