Covid-19 update: 1,538 new cases reported in SA

South Africa has identified 1,538 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 3.725,177. This increase represents a 6.2% positivity rate.

The majority of new Covid-19 cases today are from Gauteng (39%), followed by KwaZulu-Natal (24%). Western Cape accounted for 23%; Eastern Cape accounted for 6% and Mpumalanga accounted for 3%. Free State and North West each accounted for 2% respectively. Northern Cape and Limpopo accounted for less than 1% of today’s new cases.

“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 15 deaths and of these, 7 occurred in the past 24 – 48 hours,” said the NICD.

This brings the total fatalities to 100,067 to date.

23.947,309 tests have been conducted in both public and private sectors.

There has been an increase of 34 hospital admissions in the past 24 hours.

President Cyril Ramaphosa on Monday announced that all Covid-19 pandemic legal restrictions would end at midnight, declaring it was time to resume growing the economy.

Ramaphosa said his country, which is the hardest hit on the continent, has seen death rates plunge from an average daily high of 420 in July last year to just 12 in the past week.

Government “decided to terminate the national state of disaster with effect from midnight tonight” which has been in place since March 15, 2020, he said in a televised address.

“We are hopeful that the worst is behind us, and  we are confident that there are only better days ahead.

“Now is the time to grow our economy and create jobs… to get our country back on track. 

“Now is the time to heal, to recover and to rebuild,” he said in a televised address to the nation.

South Africa’s already struggling economy was worsened by the pandemic, with unemployment rate rising to a record 35.3 percent during the last three months of 2021.

“Although the pandemic is not over, and although we continue to remain cautious, we can be confident that we are in a better position now than we have been at any other time over the last 750 days,” said Ramaphosa.

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However some “transitional” measures such as mask-wearing in indoor spaces will remain in place for the next 30 days.

South Africa is the continent’s most infected, counting more than 3.7 million coronavirus cases or more than 30 percent of Africa’s over 11.3 million cases.

Additional reporting by AFP