South Africa records more than 570 new COVID deaths

By Hassan Isilow

JOHANNESBURG(AA) - South Africa on Wednesday registered 573 COVID-19 related deaths in the past 24 hours, taking the country’s total number of fatalities to 75,774, according to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD).

The NICD also said that 7,502 new COVID-19 cases were identified in the country, pushing the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 2,554,240 -- the highest on the continent.

“This increase represents an 18.9% positivity rate,’’ it said in its daily update.

Tuesday's figure for new infections was lower at 6,590, while statistics also show that the average number of new cases per day over the seven preceding days has decreased.

The NICD said the majority of new cases were from KwaZulu-Natal province, accounting for 26% of infections, followed by the tourism province of Western Cape at 23%. Gauteng province, which includes the country’s largest city, Johannesburg, and the capital Pretoria, accounted for 17%.

-Vaccination milestone

Meanwhile the Department of Health announced Wednesday that the country had reached a milestone in its fight against COVID-19 when it administered its 9 millionth vaccination.

Out of the 9 million doses administered, 3.58 million South Africans have been fully vaccinated.

However, the country has a population of over 60 million, and the current vaccination exercise has only covered 7% of the population.