Gauteng cases surging as SA records 5,782 new Covid-19 infections in 24 hours

Covid-19 cases in Gauteng are surging at greater rates than the rest of the country, the health ministry said on Wednesday night.

Because of this, the ministry has encouraged residents of the province to adhere to non-pharmaceutical interventions, including wearing a mask, washing hands, sanitising and maintaining social distancing.

This came as the ministry announced that there were 5,782 new Covid-19 cases in the past 24 hours, taking the total number of cases to date to 1,675,013. The new infections came from 45,484 tests.

“This represents a 12.7% positivity rate. We will be monitoring this increase in positivity rate to see if it sustains and, meanwhile, urge all citizens to remain vigilant and adhere to non-pharmaceutical interventions, even if vaccinated,” the ministry said.

There were also 110 new Covid-19 related deaths recorded in the past 24 hours. Of these, nearly half (54) were in Gauteng, 16 were in the North West, 11 were in Limpopo, seven were in the Northern Cape, four each in both KZN and Mpumalanga and three in the Western Cape.

This means there have been 56,711 deaths linked to the coronavirus recorded to date.

The ministry reported that there had now been 1,117,569 people vaccinated across SA.

TimesLIVE