Cape Town – The number of new Covid-19-related cases has been steadily increasing this week, with 2 056 new cases being identified on Thursday.
The cumulative number of detected Covid-19 cases is 721 770, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said in a statement. A total of 1 092 new cases were reported on Tuesday and 1 863 yesterday.
’’Regrettably, we report 53 Covid-19-related deaths today (58 were recorded yesterday): 37 from Eastern Cape, 4 from Gauteng, 5 from the Free State, 5 from KwaZulu Natal and 2 from Mpumalanga. This brings the total number of Covid-19-related deaths to 19 164,“ Mkhize said.
’’Of the 53 deaths reported today, 15 were reported to have occurred in the past 24-48 hours: 3 from the Free State, 7 from Eastern Cape, 4 from Gauteng and 1 from KwaZulu-Natal.’’
The recoveries now stand at 649 935, which translates to a recovery rate of 90 percent. The cumulative number of tests conducted to date is 4 777 609, with 25 013 new tests conducted since the last report.
Western Cape health department head Dr Keith Cloete said on Thursday that a “superspreader’’ event in Cape Town’s affluent southern suburbs, where scores of people aged between 15 and 25 contracted the virus, was responsible for the surge in cases over the past three weeks. He was referring to an event held at a Claremont nightclub, which affected nearly 100 people.
Meanwhile, John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), told a press conference today the continent must brace for a "second wave" of the coronavirus as cases surge in Europe and some African countries see their own caseloads "creeping up".
"The time to prepare for the second wave is truly now. The continent has done very well in bending the curve, where most infections peak around July and then decline steadily, but now we are beginning to see some stagnation," he said.
Despite early worries that the pandemic would devastate the region, the African Union's 55 member states have so far recorded around 1.7 million cases, representing just 3.9% of the global total, according to Africa CDC.
Over the past month, there has been a 6 percent average increase in weekly Covid-19 cases across the continent, and nine countries have test positivity rates higher than 10 percent.
IOL