Active Covid-19 cases in Western Cape dip below 1,000 for first time in 18 months

The number of active Covid-19 cases in the Western Cape slipped below 1,000 on Thursday.

With just 987 confirmed cases — 60% of them in Cape Town — the province is back to where it was more than 18 months ago.

The last time it had fewer than 1,000 active cases was on April 21 2020, six weeks after the first two Covid-19 diagnoses in the Western Cape were confirmed. 

At the height of the third wave of Covid-19, on August 9 2021, the Western Cape had 46,015 active cases. Since then, they have come down by almost 98%.

A total of 523,157 people in the province have been confirmed to have contracted Covid-19 and 20,149 have died — a rate of more than 33 a day. In the past seven days, only 12 Covid-19 deaths have been reported.

The latest weekly South African Medical Research Council report on excess deaths during the pandemic — most of which are believed to be due to Covid-19 — put the provincial death toll at 27,740.

By 5pm on Wednesday, 3,718,994 vaccine doses had been administered in the Western Cape, the second-highest provincial total, after Gauteng.

Just more than 47% of adults have been vaccinated in the Western Cape, the highest provincial rate. Free State, Limpopo and the Eastern Cape are not far behind.

The populous provinces of Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal are lagging, having vaccinated only 35.2% and 33.5% of adults respectively.

TimesLIVE