South Africa records over 7,000 new COVID cases, 370 deaths

By Hassan Isilow

JOHANNESBURG (AA) - South Africa registered 7,773 COVID-19 infections in a 24-hour period, taking the country’s total number of confirmed cases to 2,391,223, health authorities announced late Tuesday.

“A further 370 COVID-19-related deaths have been reported, bringing total fatalities to 70,388 to date,” the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) announced.

The institute said the majority of new cases are from Gauteng province, which includes the country’s largest city of Johannesburg and capital Pretoria, which accounted for 30% of new infections, followed by Western Cape at 20% and KwaZulu-Natal at 16%.

South Africa, with a population of over 60 million, has the highest COVID caseload and death toll on the continent. The country is currently undergoing a third wave of infections.

According to the NICD, Tuesday’s 7,773 cases are higher than Monday’s 5,683 cases and lower than the average number of new cases per day over the seven preceding days which was 11,435.

“The seven-day moving average daily number of cases has decreased,” it said in a statement.​​​​​​​

Africa’s most developed economy has so far administered more than 6.3 million vaccines, meaning over 10% of the country’s population has received a vaccine dose.