1,000 new Covid-19 cases in Gauteng as SA breaches 1,200 mark in 24 hours

New Covid-19 infections are on the rise in Gauteng, with more than 1,000 recorded in the province in the past 24 hours.

The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) said on Wednesday that there were 1,018 new cases recorded in Gauteng in the past day. On Tuesday, there were 605.

In total across the country, there were 1,275 new cases recorded in the day.

Gauteng has consistently been the worst-hit province for new infections over the past two weeks. Comparatively, in the past 24 hours, of all the other provinces only the Western Cape (53 cases) breached the 50 mark for new infections.

The positivity rate — the number of new infections against the number of tests done in the same period — is also on the rise.

“The proportion of positive new cases v total new tests is 3.6%, which is higher than the day before (2.1%). The seven-day average is 2.7% today [Wednesday], which is higher than yesterday (2.4%)," the NICD said.

In total, there have been 2,950,035 confirmed Covid-19 cases across SA since the outbreak of the virus in March last year.

The NICD said that, according to health department data, there were 22 new Covid-19 related deaths recorded in the past day. The total number of fatalities to date is 89,657.

The NICD said there were 53 new hospital admissions in the past day, with 2,106 people being treated in hospital for Covid-19 complications.

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