Johannesburg – Seven more people have succumbed to the coronavirus in South Africa, the Department of Health said on Monday, while 210 more people were newly infected with the virus.
The latest deaths take South Africa's death toll due to the coronavirus pandemic to 88,619 since last year.
This as the latest confirmed infections takes the number of confirmed Covid-19 infections in the country to over 2.9 million since the first case was detected in March last year.
National Institute for Communicable Diseases spokesperson Sinenhlanhla Jimoh said most of the 210 new infections came from Gauteng, KZN and the Western Cape, which has recorded 16 percent of new infections.
“The majority of new cases today are from Gauteng Province (37 percent), followed by KwaZulu-Natal (19 percent), and Western Cape (16 percent). Free State accounted for 7 percent; North West accounted for 6 percent; Eastern Cape and Mpumalanga accounted for 5 percent each; Limpopo and Northern Cape each accounted for 2 percent of today’s new cases,” she said.
Jimoh said 18 million Covid-19 tests had been conducted in the public and private sector since last year, with just over 15 000 tests conducted in the past 24 hours.
She said: “Today the institute reports 210 new Covid-19 cases that have been identified in South Africa, which brings the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 2 916 803. This increase represents a 1.4 percent positivity rate.
“As per the National Department of Health, a further 7 Covid-19 related deaths have been reported, bringing total fatalities to 88 619 to date,” she said.
Jimoh added that there were 24 people admitted in hospital due to Covid-19 in the past 24 hours, taking the total number of people hospitalized due to the virus, to under 5 000 – with 4 935 people in the public and private medical facilities currently in hospital.
Meanwhile, over 167 000 jabs were administered against the virus in the past 24 hours, the Department of Health said, taking total vaccination jabs to over 20 million.
IOL