This week has proved a bit of an oddity when it comes to the daily infographic reports on COVID-19 in South Africa from the National Department of Health. They were a fixture every evening or early morning, provided updated numbers for the spread of the virus in the country, but this week has seen no infographic being released by the NDoH at the time of writing.
Precisely why is unclear, with only the official document on updated COVID-19 numbers coming from the Twitter account of Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize.
Looking at the latest one that the minister shared, the total number of cases to date for SA now sits at 1 517 666. Oddly, the number of new cases over the past 24 hours have not been listed on the report, but our calculations from the previous day places them at 1 404, which is a relatively sharp rise compared to earlier in the week.
The rest of the report shows that 1 436 010 recoveries have been recorded, as the recovery rate remains for the third day in a row at 94.6 percent. It has also been confirmed that 92 029 frontline healthcare workers have been inoculated, with 8 459 vaccines having been administered over the past 24 hours, which is a figure that needs to rise soon.
Unfortunately, 96 more fatalities have also been recorded, pushing the death toll related to COVID-19 in South Africa to date to 50 462.
The full breakdown of COVID-19 in South Africa is as follows:
Provinces | Confirmed Cases | Recoveries | Active cases | Deaths |
Western Cape | 278 302 | 261 316 | 16 986 | 11 243 |
Eastern Cape | 194 022 | 182 427 | 11 595 | 11 310 |
Northern Cape | 34 203 | 31 417 | 2 859 | 695 |
Free State | 80 389 | 70 932 | 9 457 | 3 323 |
KwaZulu-Natal | 329 909 | 310 715 | 19 194 | 9 715 |
North West | 61 264 | 57 664 | 3 600 | 1 203 |
Mpumalanga | 71 525 | 69 073 | 2 452 | 1 271 |
Gauteng | 405 860 | 393 097 | 12 763 | 9 797 |
Limpopo | 62 192 | 59 369 | 2 823 | 1 905 |
Unknown | 0 | |||
TOTAL | 1 517 666 | 1 436 010 | 81 656 | 50 462 |
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:
- Dr Zweli Mkhize on Twitter
- 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 engin akyurt on Unsplash]