Johannesburg – A total of 13 347 more people have contracted Covid-19 in South Africa, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) said on Tuesday.
Gauteng accounts for the majority of new cases (67%), followed by the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal provinces (7% each).
According to the NICD, this means the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases has risen to 1 954 466.
“This increase represents a 26.2 % positivity rate,” the public health institute said.
Meanwhile, 226 more people lost their lives to Covid-19, pushing the death toll to 60 264.
There are 154 226 active cases, while 12 559 patients are currently receiving treatment of which 711 were admitted in the past 24 hours.
There are now 2 900 666 people who have been vaccinated in South Africa. Of these, 107 762 received their shot on Tuesday.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), to date, there have been 181 176 715 confirmed cases of Covid-19, including 3 930 496 deaths.
Meanwhile, 2 660 756 547 vaccine doses have been administered as of 28 June.
Global view
According to the WHO’s Covid-19 weekly epidemiological update, the global number of new cases over the past week was over 2.6 million, a similar number compared to the previous week.
The number of weekly deaths continued to decrease, with more than 57 000 fatalities logged in the past week, a 10% dip compared to the previous week.
“This is the lowest weekly mortality figure since those recorded in early November 2020.”
However, globally, Covid-19 incidence remains very high with an average of over 370 000 cases reported each day over the past week.
The WHO reported that the cumulative number of infections reported worldwide now exceeds 180 million and the number of deaths is almost 4 million.
“This week, the African region recorded a sharp increase in incidence (33%) and mortality (42%) when compared to the previous week.”
In addition, the Eastern Mediterranean and European regions also recorded a peak in the number of weekly cases.
“All regions, except for the African region, reported a decline in the number of deaths in the past week.”
The highest numbers of new cases were reported from Brazil (521 298 new cases, 3% increase), India (351 218 new cases, 12% increase), Colombia (204 132 new cases, 5% increase), Russia (134 465 new cases, 24% increase), and Argentina (131 824 new cases, 11% decrease).
Globally, cases of the Alpha variant have been reported in 172 countries, territories, or areas), Beta in 120 countries, Gamma in 72 countries, and Delta in 96 countries.
– SAnews.gov.za
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