This week has seen the number of cases for COVID-19 in South Africa increase significantly, as the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), confirmed the discovery of a new variant of the virus, which appears to show up in Botswana and Hong Kong too.

At this stage, it is still too early to tell whether this variant will prove as devastating as the delta one identified during the third wave earlier this year, but if infections and fatalities increase significantly in the coming days, we may need to prepare ourselves for another lockdown during the festive period.

For now it looks like Gauteng is the epicentre of this rise in infections, with the NICD noting that over 1 900 cases over the past 24 hours emanate from the province, accounting for the majority of the 2 465 recorded by the National Department of Health (NDoH) in its latest report.

The department also confirms that the total number of infections to date has risen to 2 952 500 as a result of the recent surge. Added to this, the NDoH says 114 fatalities have been recorded over the past 24 hours as the death toll related to COVID-19 in South Africa now sits at 89 771.

As for the vaccine rollout, the past 24 hours has seen 121 359 jabs administered as the total number of vaccines administered to date is now 25 123 452. As of 17:00 on 26th November, an estimated 14 195 303 people fully vaccinated at this stage.

The full outlook for COVID-19 in South Africa follows on below:

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 Tim Mossholder on Unsplash]