Cape Town - South Africa registered 3 342 new Covid-19 cases on Saturday with 12 related deaths occurring over the past 24-48 hours.
“Today, the institute reports 3 342 new Covid-19 cases that have been identified in South Africa, which brings the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 3 601 630,” the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) said.
The NICD indicated that this increase represents a 10.1% positivity rate.
There has been an ongoing audit in all of South Africa’s nine provinces to address a backlog of cases and deaths, the Department of Health said earlier this month.
“Due to the ongoing audit exercise by the National Department of Health (NDoH), there may be a backlog of Covid-19 mortality cases reported. Today, the NDoH reports 121 deaths and of these, 12 occurred in the past 24-48 hours. This brings the total fatalities to 94 905 to date,” the NICD added.
The institute said 22 228 242 tests have been conducted in both the public and private sectors .
The majority of new cases today are from Gauteng (31%), followed by the Western Cape (15%).
Limpopo accounted for 13%; KwaZulu-Natal for 11%; Mpumalanga for 10%; the Free State for 7%; North West for 6%; the Eastern Cape for 4%; and the Northern Cape for 2% of yesterday (Saturday’s) new cases.
The NICD said the proportion of positive new cases/total new tested on Saturday is 10.1%, which is lower than Friday’s (10.6%). The 7-day average was 9.6% yesterday (Saturday), and higher than Friday’s (9.4%).
A total of 77 084 vaccines doses were administered in the past 24 hours.
South Africans are urged to get vaccinated for Covid-19, wear masks properly, opt to gather in ventilated spaces but to avoid unnecessary gatherings, maintain social distancing and wash their hands regularly with soap and water.
IOL