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) reported 9,818 new Covid-19 cases and 53 more deaths on Saturday.
The positivity rate is now 26.6%.
South Africa’s total number of confirmed cases since the outbreak of Covid-19 is 3,468,079. The country’s death toll now stands at 91,198.
According to the NICD, KwaZulu-Natal has overtaken the Western Cape as the province with the most number of new cases.
The number of new infections spiralled by more than half across the world this week as the Covid-19 surge continues, while pandemic-linked deaths dropped 9%.
The average number of new daily coronavirus cases passed the symbolic one million mark to 1.18 million, a 57 % increase over the week before.
ALSO READ: Covid-19 death rate drops by 9% as pandemic spirals
The Europe region accounted for 54% of the cases, recording 4,490,612 over the week. The United States and Canada zone provided another 32%, with 2,636,831 cases.
The confirmed cases only reflect a fraction of the actual number of infections, with varying counting practices and levels of testing in different countries.
The main flare-ups at a regional level took place in Oceania and Latin America and the Caribbean, where they more than doubled – by 157% and 138% respectively.
There was also a big increase of 92% in cases in the United States/Canada zone. The number of infections increased in Europe by 47% and in the Middle East by 37%.
Cases in Africa, where the highly contagious Omicron variant was first detected, increased by just eight percent. Asia bucked the world trend with its infection numbers down two percent.
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