Covid-19 update: SA breaches 90,000 death mark

South Africa has breached the 90,000 death mark after reporting 27 Covid-19 related deaths in the past 24 hours.

As of Tuesday, the country has a total of 90,002 Covid-19 related deaths.

13,147 new cases have also been identified, bringing the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 3,051, 222.

This increase represents a 24.9% positivity rate, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), a division of the National Health Laboratory Service, announced.

The majority of new cases today are from Gauteng (64%), followed by KwaZulu-Natal (11%). Western Cape accounted for 6%; Mpumalanga accounted for 4%; North West accounted for 5%; Eastern Cape and Free State and Limpopo accounted for 3% each, Northern Cape accounted for 1% of today’s new cases. 

19.838,883 tests have been conducted in both public and private sectors.

NUM rejects calls for vaccine mandates, vows to defend workers’ rights

As the debate over Covid-19 vaccine mandates continues to divide South Africans, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) on Tuesday said it was opposed to mandatory vaccination of workers.

NUM, an affiliate of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), vowed to defend workers who refuse to be vaccinated by all means, saying this would ensure that their members are not discriminated against because of their constitutional right to exercise their beliefs.

NUM made the announcement following a meeting of its three-day extended national executive committee (NEC) in Cape Town.

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The union’s acting general secretary William Mabapa said NUM continued to support government’s national vaccination programme, but was against mandatory vaccination of workers.

This follows President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement last week on the establishment of a task team that will investigate the feasibility of making Covid-19 vaccinations mandatory in South Africa for specific activities and locations.

Mabapa said their NEC was deeply worried that some mining companies such as Sibanye-Stillwater were forcing workers to vaccinate and required proof of vaccination when entering their premises.

Additional reporting by Thapelo Lekabe