Johannesburg - More than 2 100 people in South Africa have been infected with the coronavirus in the past 24 hours, with the Department of Health confirming a further 108 deaths as a result of Covid-19-related complications.
The latest figures 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.
This also takes the number of confirmed deaths to 87 525 to date.
“Today the institute reports 2 106 new Covid-19 cases that have been identified in South Africa, which brings the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 2 900 994. This increase represents a 4.6% positivity rate,” said National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) spokesperson Sinenhlanhla Jimoh.
In terms of hospital admissions, more than 143 people have been admitted in hospital due to Covid-19, taking the total number of people currently hospitalised due to the virus to over 6 713 in the public and private medical facilities.
The NICD said over 17.6 million tests have been conducted since last March, with over 45 000 testing for the virus in the past 24 hours.
In terms of the latest new infections, Jimoh said the KwaZulu-Natal, the Western Cape and Gauteng accounted for most of the new infections in the country, with 30%, 18% and 11% respectively.
The Eastern Cape and the Free State, 10%, Northern Cape, 9%, North West, 6%, Mpumalanga, 5% and Limpopo, 1%, made up the remainder of the new infections.
Jimoh said the 7-day moving average of daily number of cases has decreased.
“The total number of cases today (n= 2 106) is higher than yesterday (n= 1 367) and higher than the average number of new cases per day over the 7 preceding days (n= 1 671),” she explained.
The following table is a summary of reported Covid-19 admissions by sector.
Meanwhile, over 148 000 vaccines were administered across the country in the past 24 hours, taking total vaccinations to over 17.3 million to date.
IOL