Covid-19 update: SA has 15,100 active cases

South Africa currently has 15,100 active cases of Covid-19, with 1,888 of these identified in the past 24 hours.

This brings the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 3.718,953. This increase represents a 6.4% 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 (39%), followed by Kwa-Zulu Natal (22%). Western Cape accounted for 21%; Eastern Cape and Free State each accounted for 4% respectively; Limpopo, Mpumalanga and North West each accounted for 3% respectively; and Northern Cape accounted for 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 12 deaths and of these, 1 occurred in the past 24 – 48 hours,” said the NICD.

This brings the total fatalities to 100,032 to date.

23.838,911 tests have been conducted in both public and private sectors. 

There has been an increase of 44 hospital admissions in the past 24 hours.

Covid-19 fatalities higher than reported

Covid-19 fatalities are estimated to be higher than officially reported, with researchers saying they could be triple the reported figures.

Data compiled by the South African Medical Research Council shows that there have been over 300,000 excess deaths from natural causes since the pandemic hit.

“Since 3 May 2020, there has been a cumulative total of 303,400 excess deaths from natural causes of persons all ages,” the council said in a report on Tuesday.

The excess deaths data is derived from an estimate of fatalities that might be expected to have occurred without a pandemic, according to the methodology employed by the government-funded but independent research group.

“Although more data are needed on the underlying causes of (natural) death, (the) observation is strongly supportive that a significant proportion of the current excess mortality being observed in South Africa is likely to be attributable to Covid-19,” it said in a report on its website.

According to the council, 85,000 of the excess deaths occurred during the first year of the pandemic, 203,200 occurred last year, while more than 15,000 have occurred so far this year.

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

The country on Thursday destroyed some 92,000 Pfizer vaccines that expired on Thursday, health ministry said in a statement.

It was the first time South Africa — where 30 percent of the population is fully inoculated — discarded Covid vaccines, as uptake “wanes”, government said. 

Another nearly 900,000 doses are due to expire in May while 5.8 million are facing expiry in June, with another 4.8 million reaching their use-by date in July. 

President Cyril Ramaphosa last week rolled back most of the remaining coronavirus restrictions as new infections fell and fewer deaths were reported.

Additional reporting by AFP