An isolation chamber equipped with a negative pressure filtration system used to transport positive Covid-19 patients in the City of Tshwane's Special Infection Unit vehicle at the Hatfield Emergency Station in Pretoria on December 30, 2020. Picture: Jacques Nelles
Covid-19-related deaths in the Free State and the Western remain high, with the Department of Health confirming an additional 12 and 16 deaths on Friday, respectively.
Gauteng is close behind with 11 deaths, followed by the Northern Cape at 10, and Limpopo at two.
This brings South Africa’s total Covid-19 death toll to 53,226.
An additional 30,560 tests were conducted, bring the total number of tests to date to more than 10 million.
The present recovery rate is hovering at 95%.
Despite a low death toll in the Eastern Cape at present, Covid-19 positive cases account for 12.6% of the country’s total case load.
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Gauteng still leads with 416,704 Covid-19 cases, followed by KwaZulu-Natal at 334,925.
In India, the worst-hit state of Maharashtra was running out of vaccines as the health system buckled under the weight of the contagion, which has killed 2.9 million people worldwide.
Having let its guard down with mass religious festivals, political rallies and spectators at cricket matches, the world’s second-most populous nation has added more than a million new infections since late March.
Stay-at-home orders were also set to come into force for the eight million inhabitants of Bogota, as the Colombian capital battled a third wave of infections, adding to curfews already covering seven million across four other major cities.
Elsewhere in South America, Argentina entered a night-time curfew Friday running from midnight to 06:00 am every day until April 30.
Both Argentina and Colombia have recorded about 2.5 million coronavirus cases, numbers surpassed only by Brazil in the region.
Rio de Janeiro on Friday was reversing restrictions in place for two weeks, reopening restaurants and bars, though the city’s famed beaches remained closed.
All of France is subject to restrictions of some form, while the German government’s attempts to curb movement and commerce have been stymied by several states refusing to go along with the proposals.
Now Berlin is changing the rules to centralise power, adjustments likely to usher in night-time curfews and some school closures in especially hard-hit areas.
Italy was set to end lockdowns from next week for Lombardy, the epicentre of its coronavirus pandemic, and several other regions with improving contagion statistics.
Neighbouring Slovenia announced it would ease coronavirus restrictions and suspend a six-month-long curfew starting Monday.
Nivrita GANGULY/AFP, AFP bureaus and Nica Richards
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