Covid-19 update: SA records 8,524 new cases, 11 more deaths

As of Saturday, 7 May, the cumulative number of detected Covid-19 cases in South Africa is 3,835,902 with 8,524 new cases identified.

This represents a 31.1% positivity rate, according to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD).

Eleven Covid-19 related deaths were reported – five of which occurred in the past 24 – 48 hours – bringing the total number of deaths to 100,516.

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There were 66 hospital admissions in the past 24 hours.

The total number of recoveries stands at 3,676,810 with a recovery rate of 97%. South Africa currently has 58,576 active cases.

24,654,271 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 35,112,052 as of 6 May.

Provincial breakdown

The majority of the new Covid-19 cases came from Gauteng (3,290), followed by KwaZulu-Natal (2278) and Western Cape (1,379).

Eastern Cape (547) then follows, while Free State and Mpumalanga recorded 392 and 216 new cases respectively.

North West recorded 185 cases followed by Northern Cape (149) and Limpopo (88), 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 5 July 2022.

According to the Department of Health, the extension is in line with statutory requirements and will afford the department sufficient time to go through and consider all comments and representations on the regulations.

The department also gazetted limited regulations, which came into effect on Thursday.

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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.

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 last month.