Covid-19 update: SA records 13,719 new cases as dept upgrades EVDS

On Friday South Africa reported 13,719 new Covid-19 cases that have been identified in the country.

This now brings the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 2,356,049.

The department said that this increase represented a 26.1% positivity rate. A further 450 Covid-19 related deaths have been reported, bringing total fatalities to 69,075 to date.

14,477,689 tests have been conducted in both public and private sectors.

The department has since announced an upgraded Electronic Vaccination Data System that will allow users to schedule their own appointments for vaccinations for Covid-19 in an attempt to encourage vaccination and accelerate the speed of the vaccination programme.

This was confirmed on Friday by the Acting Minister in Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni during a media briefing on the status of unrest that ensued recently in and KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) and Gauteng (GP).

Chief director of the department and the National EVDS project manager, Milani Wolmarans, said on Friday that the old automated, centralised booking system was frustrating the population.

“We’re looking at how we can improve the choice of individuals in order to be able to select the site and also select the timeslot for them to access the vaccination. So, we’re talking about complementary vaccination appointment scheduling [on] digital platforms,” said Wolmarans.

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Once people have registered and received a vaccination code, they’ll have the option of logging into the system and schedule a date, time, and site for vaccination.

Wolmarans said the upgrade would avoid disruptions and conflict at the site level where they sometimes see overbooking and people have to be turned away.

The new system, expected to begin working in August, will add an additional step when self-registering on the EVDS system.