Covid-19 update: SA records 1,659 new cases and 16 deaths

South Africa has identified 1,659 new cases of Covid-19 in the past 24 hours, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), a division of the National Health Laboratory Service, has announced.

This brings the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 3.735,578. This increase represents a 7.5% positivity rate.

Provincial breakdown of daily Covid-19 cases

• Gauteng Province – 47%
• Western Cape – 23%
• KwaZulu-Natal – 16%
• Eastern Cape – 6%
• Free State – 2%
• Mpumalanga – 2%; Limpopo,
• Northern Cape – 1%
• North West – 1%

“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 16 deaths, and of these, 1 occurred in the past 24 – 48 hours,” said the NICD.

This brings the total fatalities to 100,132 to date.

24.116,414 tests have been conducted in both public and private sectors.

There has been an increase of 28 hospital admissions in the past 24 hours.

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WHO experts insist Covid-19 still a global emergency

The WHO’s emergency committee on Covid-19 on Wednesday unanimously affirmed that the virus remains a major public health danger and insisted that countries must stop dropping their guard.

With many nations relaxing public health and social measures, and drastically reducing testing for the virus, the World Health Organization’s group of experts said the pandemic was far from being at an end.

“Now is not the time to let our guard down — on the contrary, and this is an extremely strong recommendation,” committee chair Didier Houssin told a press conference.

“The situation is far from over with regard to the Covid-19 pandemic, the circulation of the virus is still very active, mortality remains high and the virus is evolving in an unpredictable way,” the French doctor warned.

“Now is not the time for relaxation on this virus, nor weakness in surveillance, testing and reporting, nor laxity in public and social health measures and no resignation when it comes to vaccination.”

Additional reporting by AFP