The country has exited the festive season relatively unscathed from the fourth wave of infections for COVID-19 in South Africa. While infection rates were high, they never reached the surging peaks of the third wave brought about by the more deadly delta variant.

As more South Africans begin to return to work, it also looks as if numbers are beginning to decline. This as the latest report from the National Department of Health (NDoH) confirms that 2 409 new cases have been recorded over the past 24 hours, which is far less than we have seen in previous weeks.

That said, it is only the beginning of the week, so we will need to see how these figures evolve as the week progresses.

For now, the total number of infections recorded to date sits at 3 528 463, with the recovery rate increasing slightly to 93.3 percent and more than 21.57 million tests having been conducted so far.

The NDoH also notes that 77 fatalities have been reported over the past 24 hours, as the death toll related to COVID-19 in South Africa rises to 92 530.

As for the vaccine rollout, turnout to sites across the country have picked up, with 83 842 jabs administered over the past 24 hours. There is still more work to be done on that front, however, with 28 417 574 vaccines administered in total and an estimated 16 124 481 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 Synatix on Unsplash]