More than 200,000 health workers now vaccinated as SA records 1,000 new cases and 121 deaths in 24 hours

Five weeks after the first Covid-19 vaccine was administered in South Africa, more than 200,000 health workers have now received their jab.

Health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize announced that 207,808 health workers had been vaccinated up to 6.30pm on Wednesday. This was an increase of 13,551 since the same time on Tuesday.

He also announced that there were 1,048 new Covid-19 infections and 121 Covid-19 related deaths recorded in the past 24 hours. This means that there have now been 1,540,009 confirmed cases and 52,372 fatalities across the country.

The new cases came from 25,155 tests at a positivity rate of 4.16%.

Of the newly recorded deaths, 38 were in Limpopo and the Free State, 24 in Gauteng, eight in the Northern Cape, five in KwaZulu-Natal, and four in both Mpumalanga and the Eastern Cape. There were no deaths recorded in the North West and the Western Cape.

To date, 1,466,595 recoveries have been recorded, at a recovery rate of 95%.

TimesLIVE