Covid-19 update: Gauteng and Western Cape report majority of new cases

The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) on Saturday said 1,571 new Covid-19 cases were identified in South Africa, representing a 5.8% positivity rate.

This brings the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases in the country since the start of the pandemic to 3,693,532.

“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 3 deaths and of these, 1 occurred in the past 24 – 48 hours. This brings the total fatalities to 99,712 to date,” the NICD said in a statement.

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23,392,502 tests were conducted in both the public and private sectors.

The majority of new cases on Saturday were from Gauteng (34%), followed by Western Cape (24%).

Kwa-Zulu Natal accounted for 20%; North West accounted for 6%; Mpumalanga accounted for 5%; Free State accounted for 4%; Eastern Cape and Limpopo each accounted for 3% respectively, and Northern Cape accounted for 1% of new cases.

There was an increase of 24 hospital admissions in the past 24 hours.

The proportion of positive new cases/total new tested was 5.8%, which is lower than Friday (7.5%). The 7-day average was 6.2% on Saturday, which is the same as Friday (6.2%).

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Here are the latest developments in the coronavirus crisis:

China locks down nine million

The northeastern Chinese city of Changchun and its nine million people are locked down as the country records the worst spike in new cases in two years. 

Only one person from every household will be allowed out every two days to buy “daily necessities”, officials in Changchun said. 

• Shanghai shuts schools -Economic hub Shanghai shuts its schools, with other cities using targeted lockdowns and mass testing to contain the outbreak driven by the highly-contagious Omicron variant.
• Beijing brings in rapid tests -Beijing says it will introduce rapid antigen tests for the first time. 
• Hong Kong care homes hit -The virus is tearing through Hong Kong’s care homes, with some 60 percent of the nearly 3,000 virus deaths there in the last two months occurring in the facilities. 
• WHO: Nations didn’t take notice -Exactly two years after the World Health Organization declared a pandemic, it says it was frustrated that countries didn’t sit up when it sounded the alarm six weeks earlier.
• US cracks down on Covid fraud -The US Justice Department appoints a special prosecutor to crack down on pandemic fraud, which is estimated to have cost Washington more than $8 billion (7.3 billion euros).
• EU airlines want end to restrictions -European airlines and airports call for an end to pandemic measures for flights in the bloc as most countries begin to relax mask and vaccine requirements.
• Unjabbed US air crews go back to work -America’s United Airlines says it will allow its unvaccinated employees who had an exemption from a jab to return to work.
• Mainz game off -An outbreak of 20 cases at the German club Mainz leads to their second consecutive Bundesliga game being postponed.
• Six million dead -Coronavirus has killed at least 6,026,306 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, according to an AFP tally based on official sources on Friday.

The US has recorded the most Covid deaths with 965,464, followed by Brazil on 654,086 and India with 515,714.

Taking into account excess mortality linked to Covid, the WHO estimates the true death toll could be two to three times higher.

Additional reporting by AFP