A general view taken on January 1, 2022 shows thousands of New Year's day revellers and holidaymakers gathering on the North Pier Beach during New Year festivities in Durban after the government lifted a COVID-19 restriction by removing the midnight to 4am curfew. (Photo by Rajesh JANTILAL / AFP)
With over three million laboratory-confirmed Covid-19 cases, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) on Tuesday said a further 8,078 cases were identified across the country.
The newest tally represents a 20.1% positivity rate.
139 people succumbed to Covid-19, with 309 patients admitted to hospital over the past 24 hours.
KwaZulu-Natal remains the province with the most new cases, currently representing 28% of the country’s Covid-19-positive results. The Western Cape currently contributes 22% of the country’s average.
Gauteng is not far behind, however, representing 19%, followed by the Eastern Cape at 13%.
The Northern Cape accounted for just 2% of the country’s Covid-19 cases on Tuesday.
The NICD reports the number of cases was much higher than Monday’s 3,232 new cases, but lower than the average number of cases over the previous week.
The seven-day moving average number of daily cases has also deceased.
The United States sets a new world record with more than one million cases logged Monday as the Omicron variant continues to spread at a blistering pace.
UK Covid cases top 200,000 in 24 hours for the first time, while nearly 300,000 new daily infections have been recorded in France, according to Health Minister Olivier Veran.
Australia reports a record daily tally of nearly 50,000 cases.
The Omicron variant of Covid-19 is present in around 128 countries, and it will become dominant “in a matter of weeks”, the World Health Organization’s Covid-19 incident manager Abdi Mahamud says.
The coronavirus has killed at least 5,449,474 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, according to an AFP tally compiled from official sources on Tuesday.
The US has recorded the most Covid deaths with 827,749, followed by Brazil with 619,209, India 482,017 and Russia 312,187.
Compiled by Nica Richards. Additional reporting by AFP.
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