Cape Town – South Africa reported 2 858 new Covid-19 cases and a further six Covid-19 related deaths on Sunday, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) said.
This comes days after a new variant was discovered.
“The institute reports 2 858 new Covid-19 cases that have been identified in South Africa, which brings the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 2 961 406,” said the institute.
The NICD says the increase represents a 9.8% positivity rate
A further six Covid-19 related deaths have been reported, bringing total fatalities to 89 797.
A total of 19 413 079 tests have been conducted in both public and private sectors.
The majority of new cases are from Gauteng (81%), followed Western Cape accounting for 5%.
KwaZulu-Natal accounted for 4%; Mpumalanga and North West each accounted for 3% respectively; Limpopo accounted for 2%; and Eastern Cape, Free State and Northern Cape each accounted for 1% respectively of today’s new cases.
The proportion of total new cases tested today is 9.8%, higher than yesterday (9.2%). The 7-day average is 6.1% today, which is higher than yesterday (5.2%).
This week, medical experts detected a group of related SaRS-CoV-2 viruses in South Africa named the B.1.1.529 lineage.
B.1.1.529 has been detected in Gauteng at relatively high frequency, with >70 percent of genomes sequenced from specimens collected from November 14 to 23 belonging to this lineage.
The NICD said there were currently no unusual symptoms following infection with the B.1.1.529 variant. As with other variants, some individuals are asymptomatic.
IOL