JOHANNESBURG – Fifty-six more people have died from Covid-19 related complications in South Africa, the department of health has said on Friday, while 517 more people have tested positive for the Covid-19 in the past 24 hours.
The latest deaths take South Africa's death toll due to the Covid-19 pandemic to 88,891 since last year, while the latest confirmed infections takes the number of confirmed Covid-19 infections in the country to more than 2.9 million since the detection of the first case in March 2020.
National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) spokesperson Sinenhlanhla Jimoh said the majority of the new infections came from KZN, Free State, the Western Cape and Gauteng.
Provincial Breakdown
KZN – 24%
Western Cape; Free State – 17%
Gauteng –13%
Free State – 13%
Eastern Cape – 8%
North West; Mpumalanga – 7%
Limpopo – 1%
Jimoh said 18 million Covid-19 tests had been conducted in the public and private sector since last year, with just more than 30,000 tests conducted in the past 24 hours.
Jimoh said 32 people were admitted to hospital due to Covid-19 in the past 24 hours, taking the total number of people in hospital due to the virus, to 4,323.
“Today the institute reports 517 new Covid-19 cases that have been identified in South Africa, which brings the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 2,918,883. This increase represents a 1.7 percent positivity rate,” she said.
“As per the national department of health, a further 56 Covid-19-related deaths have been reported, bringing total fatalities to 88,891 to date.”
The NICD said the seven-day moving average for new cases showed that the infections were on the decline.
“The proportion of positive new cases/total new tested today is 1.7 percent, which is higher than yesterday (1.6 percent). The seven-day average is 1.7 percent today, which is lower than yesterday (1.8 percent),” Jimoh said.
Meanwhile, more than 206,000 jabs were administered against the virus in the past 24 hours, the Department of Health said, taking total vaccination jabs to over 21 million.
The department of health also said 116,000 people had taken their first jabs in the past 24 hours.
IOL