Covid-19 update: SA records 1,768 new cases, six more deaths

As of Thursday, 14 April, the cumulative number of detected Covid-19 cases in South Africa is 3,737,346 with 1,768 new cases identified, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) confirmed.

This represents a 7.6% positivity rate.

Six Covid-19 related deaths were reported – three of which occurred in the past 24 – 48 hours – bringing the total number of deaths to 100,138.

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There were 32 hospital admissions in the past 24 hours.

The total number of recoveries stands at 3,625,407 with a recovery rate of 97%. South Africa currently has 11,801 active cases.

24,139,799 tests in total have been conducted to date in both public and private sectors.

The total number of vaccines administered in the country so far stands at 34,309,973 as of 13 April.

Provincial breakdown

The majority of the new Covid-19 cases came from Gauteng (860), followed by Western Cape (341) and KwaZulu-Natal (333).

Eastern Cape (90) then follows, while Free State and North West recorded 47 and 40 new cases respectively.

Mpumalanga recorded 28 cases followed by Northern Cape (18) and Limpopo (11), which recorded the lowest cases of the day.

Health regulations

Government has extended the deadline for South Africans to have their say on the proposed amendments to the National Health Act to 24 April 2022.

The draft regulations, which are aimed at dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic and other notifiable conditions outside the National State of Disaster were gazetted for public comment in March by the Department of Health.

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The deadline for submissions was initially on Good Friday, 15 April 2022.

The Department of Health said it had received more than 150,000 submissions from the public so far. The WhatsApp number for comments is 060-012-3456.

Government hopes to use the new regulations in the National Health Act to manage the pandemic outside of the Disaster Management Act following the lifting of the State of Disaster earlier this month.