Johannesburg - Over 520 more people have succumbed to the coronavirus in South Africa, while over 17 351 more people were infected with the virus.
This takes South Africa’s Covid-19 death toll to 70 908, while the over 17 000 new infections take confirmed infections since last March to over 2.39 million.
According to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), it said the number of new infections was higher than Tuesday's new cases, but it still represented a higher case average than the past seven days.
“The total number of cases today (n= 17 351) is higher than yesterday (n= 7 773) and higher than the average number of new cases per day over the 7 preceding days (n= 11 594). The seven-day moving average daily number of cases has decreased,” said Sinenhlanhla Jimoh, the spokesperson for the NICD.
She added: “Today the institute reports 17 351 new Covid-19 cases that have been identified in South Africa, which brings the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 2 408 525. This increase represents a 24.4% positivity rate.
“As per the National Department of Health, a further 520 Covid-19 related deaths have been reported, bringing total fatalities to 70 908 to date,” she said.
Over 14.6million people have tested for the coronavirus, the NICD said.
The NICD said Gauteng was still the province with the most new infections, accounting for three out of 10 infections, compared to the Western Cape, with 27% of new infections, while KZN represented 11% of new infections, and the Eastern Cape had 5% of new infections.
The North West accounted for 7%; Free State 4%, while the Northern Cape accounted for just 2% of the country's new infections as of Monday.
There has been an increase of 726 hospital admissions in the past 24 hours. This takes the total number of people admitted to hospitals due to Covid-19 to 16 252.
IOL