Covid-19 update: SA records 14,701 new cases and 291 deaths

As of Saturday, South Africa has recorded 14, 701 new cases recorded since the last report, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), a division of the National Health Laboratory Service, has announced.

The positivity rate has dropped to 29.1 per cent from 29.5 % yesterday.

The country has also recorded 291 Covid-19 related deaths, bringing total fatalities to 66 676 to date.

The majority of new cases today are from Gauteng (35.5%), followed by Western Cape (15.9%). Limpopo accounted for 4.4%; Mpumalanga accounted for 4.9%; North West accounted for 5.1%; Eastern Cape accounted for 9.5%; KwaZulu-Natal accounted for 16.4%; Free State accounted for 5.4%; and Northern Cape accounted for 2.8% of today’s new cases, said the NICD.

Coronavirus: Latest global developments

• Origins probe -The World Health Organization says the second stage of an investigation into the origins of coronavirus should include further studies in China and lab “audits”.
• Catalonia curfew -Barcelona and other cities in Spain’s northeastern Catalonia region will re-impose a night-time curfew starting this weekend to fight a surge in virus cases after the measure wins court approval.
• US doses for Africa -The United States announces it is shipping 25 million Covid-19 vaccine doses to Africa, starting with Burkina Faso, Djibouti, and Ethiopia, to whom shipments will go out within days.
• Five-fold rise? -The EU’s disease agency predicts a sharp increase in cases, with nearly five times as many new infections by August 1.
• London scuppers French holidays -English residents who visit France after a July 19 loosening of coronavirus restrictions will still be required to quarantine on returning home even if they are fully vaccinated, the government says.
• APEC meeting -Pacific Rim leaders including US President Joe Biden and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping vow to ramp up the production and distribution of Covid-19 vaccines at unprecedented virtual talks on the pandemic.
• $3 bn from China -China’s President Xi Jinping promises another $3 billion in aid to developing countries to fight Covid-19.
• Eiffel Tower reopens -The Eiffel Tower in Paris reopens to visitors for the first time in nine months following its longest closure since World War II.
• England opening ‘murderous’ -Scientists say the UK government’s plan to scrap day-to-day pandemic restrictions in England next week has no basis in science and amounts to premeditated murder for thousands of people.
• ‘Pandemic of unvaccinated’ -The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pleads with Covid vaccine holdouts to get their shots, saying “this is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated”.
• Philippines lockdown -More than three million people in the Philippines go into lockdown as health officials warn of a possible surge in coronavirus infections following the first locally transmitted cases of the Delta variant.
• Fiji dismisses lockdown -Fiji dismisses calls for a hard lockdown as Covid-19 cases reach record levels in the Pacific island nation, insisting a “no jab, no job” vaccination push will contain the virus.
• Four million dead -The pandemic has killed at least 4,070,508 people since the virus first emerged in December 2019, according to an AFP compilation of official data.

The United States is the worst-affected country with 608,400 deaths, followed by Brazil with 538,942, India with 412,531, Mexico with 235,740, and Peru with 194,845.

The WHO says up to three times more people have died directly or indirectly due to the pandemic than official figures suggest.