The festive season is now in full swing and while a number of people in the country intend to celebrate as normal, the spectre of COVID-19 in South Africa looms large.
This as the number of new cases linked to the local spread of the Omicron variant of the virus remain high. We have not seen the same sort of surge as there was with the delta variant in the third wave or indeed the second wave at this time last year, but numbers are still quite high.
To that end, the latest report from the National Department of Health (NDoH) confirms 15 465 new cases over the past 24 hours, as the total number of infections rises to 3 308 074.
According to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), Gauteng has been overtaken by KwaZulu-Natal in terms of the latest figures, accounting for 4 135 new infections. The province is followed by Gauteng with 3 582 and the Western Cape with 2 849.
As for the other key figures in the NDoH report, the recovery rate is now 91 percent, with more than 20.69 million tests having been conducted to date.
Shifting to the vaccine rollout, the past 24 hours has seen 5 317 jabs administered owing to it being a Sunday, as well as the festive season beginning in earnest. As such, we should likely see low turnout at vaccination sites over the coming weeks, but government is looking at ways of increasing uptake.
As of 17:00 on 19th December, a total of 27 521 386 vaccines have been administered throughout the country.
The full outlook for COVID-19 in South Africa follows on below:
| Provinces | Confirmed Cases | Recoveries | Active cases | Deaths |
| Western Cape | 559 215 | 505 357 | 33 588 | 20 270 |
| Eastern Cape | 311 421 | 281 502 | 14 652 | 15 267 |
| Northern Cape | 98 137 | 90 693 | 5 004 | 2 440 |
| Free State | 181 216 | 159 506 | 14 574 | 7 136 |
| KwaZulu-Natal | 573 435 | 507 251 | 51 332 | 14 852 |
| North West | 172 224 | 152 144 | 15 726 | 4 354 |
| Mpumalanga | 170 668 | 159 446 | 9 201 | 2 021 |
| Gauteng | 1 105 453 | 1 030 016 | 55 549 | 19 888 |
| Limpopo | 136 305 | 124 595 | 7 590 | 4 120 |
| Unknown | 0 | |||
| TOTAL | 3 308 074 | 3 010 510 | 207 216 | 90 348 |
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 Dennis Rochel on Unsplash]
