Covid-19 Update: SA continues to record high number of daily cases

South Africa continued on Friday to record high numbers of Covid-19 daily stats, with 14,312 new cases reported in the past 24 hours.

According to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), a division responsible for the surveillance of Covid-19, a further 289 deaths were recorded, bringing total fatalities to 78,983 to date.

Friday’s stats take the cumulative number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 2,666,964, representing a 21.6% positivity rate.

“15,887,454 tests have been conducted in both public and private sectors,” the institute reported.

“The majority of new cases today are from KwaZulu-Natal (29%), followed by Western Cape (27%). Eastern Cape accounted for 12%; Gauteng accounted for 10%; Free State and Mpumalanga accounted for 6% each; Northern Cape accounted for 4%; North West accounted for 3%; and Limpopo accounted for 2% of today’s new cases.

It said there had been an increase of 605 hospital admissions. 

SA to remain at adjusted alert level 3 after 18% surge in Covid-19 cases

Health Minister Dr Joe Phaahla had earlier addressed the media on government’s efforts in the fight against Covid-19 and the progress of the vaccination roll-out programme. SA would remain at alert level 3.

The biggest milestones in the battle was the rollout of jabs for anyone over the age of 18, as well as reaching the 10-million mark of vaccines administered.

Phaahla said the moving seven-day average showed an 18.2% increase in new cases. The surge was largely driven by new cases in the Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape and Northern Cape.

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However, the health minister said it was “slightly encouraging” to see hospital admissions going down by 5.4% over the past seven days, which meant less pressure on facilities and medical staff.

Senior researcher at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research Ridhwaan Suliman on Wednesday said the epidemiological trajectory “does not make for pretty reading at the moment”.

It showed that KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape were still on a sharp increase, while the Western Cape, Northern Cape and Free State were “at their highest points ever”.

Additional reporting by Cheryl Khla