Covid-19 in SA: 2 320 new infections and 6 deaths recorded

Cape Town - South Africa registered 2 320 new Covid-19 cases on Saturday, with six related deaths occurring in the past 24 to 48 hours.

“Today the institute reports 2 320 new Covid-19 cases that have been identified in South Africa, which brings the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 3 671 991,” said the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) in a statement released on Saturday.

The NICD indicated that this increase represented a 7.0% positivity rate.

An ongoing audit exercise has been conducted across the country’s nine provinces to address a backlog of cases and deaths, the Department of Health said in a statement in January.

“Due to the ongoing audit exercise by the National Department of Health (NDoH), there may be a backlog of Covid-19 mortality cases reported. Today, the NDoH reports 46 deaths, and of these, six occurred in the past 24 to 48 hours. This brings the total fatalities to 99 191 to date,” the NICD added.

The institute said 23 053 022 tests have been conducted in both public and private sectors.

The majority of new cases today are from Gauteng, which accounted for 37%. The Western Cape followed with 20%.

KwaZulu-Natal accounted for 15%, the North West for 8%, Mpumalanga for 7%, the Free State for 6%, the Eastern Cape and Limpopo each for 3% respectively, and the Northern Cape for 1% of today’s new cases.

The proportion of positive new cases/total new cases tested today is 7.0%, which is lower than yesterday (8.4%). The seven-day average is 7.7% today, which is lower than yesterday (7.8%). The seven-day moving average daily number of cases has increased.

There has been an increase of 29 hospital admissions in the past 24 hours.

A total of 90 663 vaccines doses were administered in the past 24 hours.

Gauteng administered 26 862 vaccine doses, KwaZulu-Natal 14 224 vaccine doses, the Western Cape 13 470 vaccine doses, the Eastern Cape 8 562 vaccine doses, Limpopo 6 941 doses, the Free State 7 640 vaccine doses, Mpumalanga 6006 vaccine doses, the North West 5 197 doses and the Northern Cape 1 761 vaccine doses.

IOL