A healthcare worker prepares to conduct a PCR Covid-19 test at the Lancet laboratory in Johannesburg on 30 November 2021. Photo: EMMANUEL CROSET / AFP
The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) on Sunday reported that there were 2,597 new Covid-19 cases in South Africa.
This increase represents a 10.6% positivity rate.
The new cases brings the cumulative number of cases recorded in South Africa to 3,559,230.
There were 86 more deaths recorded on Sunday, 25 of which occurred in the past 24 to 48 hours.
South Africa’s total deaths now stands at 93,364.
Most of the new cases on Sunday are from the Western Cape (28%), followed by Gauteng (23%) and KwaZulu-Natal (21%). Eastern Cape accounted for 6%; Limpopo, Mpumalanga and Northern Cape each accounted for 5% respectively; North West accounted for 4%; and Free State accounted for 3% of today’s new cases.
The NICD also said there were 42 hospital admissions in the past 24 hours.
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Thousands demonstrated against restrictive measures designed to slow the spread of Covid in several European countries.
Austrian police reported that 27,000 people turned out in Vienna to protest plans to make vaccination compulsory.
Thousands also marched in cities across France against tighter restrictions on people not vaccinated, while thousands protested in the Italian capital Rome.
A newspaper report that UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson witnessed weekly drinking sessions by his staff throughout the coronavirus pandemic has stoked fresh calls from his own party for him to quit.
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An Omicron case has been detected in Beijing, officials in the Chinese capital said, as the country battles multiple outbreaks of the highly transmissible coronavirus variant ahead of the Winter Olympics next month.
The coronavirus has killed at least 5,528,972 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, according to an AFP tally compiled from official sources on Saturday.
The United States has recorded the most Covid deaths with 849,259, followed by Brazil with 620,796, India on 485,752 and Russia 320,634.
Taking into account excess mortality linked to Covid-19, the WHO estimates the overall death toll could be two to three times higher.
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