A health worker prepares a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19 to inoculate a minor at a vaccination centre in Santiago.. Photo: AFP/Martin Bernetti
As of Wednesday, the cumulative number of detected Covid-19 cases in South Africa is 1 861 065 with 17 493 new cases identified, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) confirmed, representing a 24.9% positivity rate
A further 166 Covid-19-related deaths have been reported, bringing the death toll in South Africa to 59 258. There are currently 130 416 active cases.
During the course of the pandemic, 1 671 391 people have recovered, which translates to a recovery rate of 89.9%. To date, 2 312 873 vaccines have been administered in South Africa.
An increase of 622 hospital admissions have been reported in the past 24 hours, and there are 6 879 patients admitted at private facilities and 3 618 patients at public facilities.
Dr Michelle Groome, Head of the Division of Public Health Surveillance and Response, is concerned about “the sharp rise in the reported daily COVID-19 cases”, especially in the Gauteng Province.
Groome said the daily case numbers are “exceeding those seen during the previous two waves”, and call on citizens to each play their roles.
“Ultimately, it is up to each one of us to play our role to reduce the spread of the virus by limiting our interaction with others, as much as possible, during this time”, she said.
With teachers and school staff to start receiving their Covid-19 vaccines from Wednesday, the Gauteng department of education has increased the number of vaccination sites in the province to 62.
Read more: Gauteng increases vaccination sites for education workers to 62
At the time of publishing, Covid-19 is affecting 220 countries and territories. The global caseload now exceeds 180 000 000, with the death toll at 3,907,364. Since the start of the pandemic, 165,080,819 patients have recovered.
The US is the worst affected with 618,294 deaths from 34,449,004. After the US, the hardest-hit countries are India with 392,014 deaths from 30,082,169 cases and Brazil with 507,240 deaths from 18,170,778 cases.
France has 110,862 deaths from 5,762,322 cases while Turkey recorded 49,358 deaths from 5,387,545 cases. South Africa is currently 19th on the list, preceded, in order, by Indonesia, Peru, Ukraine, Mexico, Poland, Iran, Germany, Spain, Colombia, Italy, Argentina, the UK, and Russia. (World Meters Info)
In other news, Brazil set a new record for Covid-19 infections on Wednesday, with 115,228 new cases identified within 24 hours, the Health Ministry said, confirming the arrival of a third wave of the pandemic.
US health authorities plan to update official guidance about administering mRNA Covid vaccines to adolescents and young adults after finding a likely link to rare cases of heart inflammation, but say the overall benefits still “clearly” outweigh the risks.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization said Wednesday it had uncovered problems at a Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine production site which Moscow insisted had been resolved.
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