We are nearing two weeks since the country moved out of alert level 4 lockdown, as the surge we saw during the peak of third wave is believed to have lessened. That said, the past week has seen both a high number of infections and fatalities for COVID-19 in South Africa.

The latest report from the National Department of Health (NDoH) shows that 13 777 new cases and 458 fatalities have been recorded in the past 24 hours, with the latter figure remaining a cause for concern.

The result of the latest numbers sees the total amount of infections recorded in SA climb to 2 497 655, with over 15 million tests having been conducted to date. The recovery rate has since dipped slightly to 90.8 percent since yesterday, with 2 268 085 recoveries being reported.

As for fatalities, the death toll has since increased to 73 873, as the delta variant of the virus continues to wreck havoc across the country.

Shifting to the vaccine rollout, this week remains a slow one in terms of daily vaccines that have been administered, with 181 096 jabs given out over the past 24 hours. As of 17:00 on 5th August, 8 377 606 vaccines have been administered in total, with an estimated 3 447 380 people inoculated from the virus. As such, we still have some ways to go before we reach population immunity, while there is still no word on when the 18 to 34 age bracket can register to receive vaccines.

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 Glen Carrie on Unsplash]