Covid-19 update: 23,884 new cases reported in SA

As of Tuesday, South Africa has 170, 900 active cases of Covid-19, with a total of 2.943,570 recoveries from 3.204,642 positive cases.

The country identified 23,884 new cases of Covid-19 in the past 24 hours.

This increase represents a 34.9% positivity rate.

The majority of new cases today are from Gauteng (36%), followed by KwaZulu-Natal (22%). Western Cape accounted for 13%; Eastern Cape accounted for 7%; Free State and North West each accounted for 6% respectively; Mpumalanga accounted for 5%; Limpopo accounted for 3%; and Northern Cape accounted for 1% of today’s new cases.

As per the National Department of Health, a further 24 Covid-19 related deaths have been reported, bringing the total fatalities to 90,172 to date. 

20.352,343 tests have been conducted in both public and private sectors, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), a division of the National Health Laboratory Service, announced on Tuesday.

There has been an increase of 599 hospital admissions in the past 24 hours.

SA and 10 other African countries taken off UK red list

The UK is to drop 11 African countries, including South Africa, from its “red list” barring incoming travel, ministers said on Tuesday.

From 0400 GMT on Wednesday, all will be removed from the list, said Transport Secretary Grant Shapps.

The UK government had responded to the identification of the Omicron variant in South Africa by banning travel from 10 Southern African countries and Nigeria.

Currently, only people who are British or Irish citizens or have UK residence rights can fly in from the red-listed countries, and they have to quarantine in hotels on arrival.

“As always, we keep all our travel measures under review and we may impose new restrictions should there be a need to do so to protect public health,” Shapps tweeted.

Compiled by Vhahangwele Nemakonde. Additional reporting by AFP.