One in three who test 'likely to have Covid-19', says Makhura as stats show 9,500 new cases in Gauteng

One in three people in Gauteng who go for a Covid-19 test is “likely” to have the virus, provincial premier David Makhura said on Thursday.

Gauteng has taken the brunt of the virus third wave, frequently accounting for upwards of 60% of new daily infections.

While the national positivity rate — the number of positive tests against the number of tests undergone in the same period — has been in the mid-to-high 20% range, in Gauteng it has been more than 30%.

“One out of every three people [who tests] in Gauteng is likely carrying the virus, so that 34% positivity rate is a scary statistic. Let’s just see how we can slow down the infection — and it is within our capacity to do so,” said Makhura.

He was speaking just hours before the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) released the latest Covid-19 statistics, which again show how Gauteng is being battered by the third wave.

There were 16,078 new Covid-19 cases identified across SA on Thursday, and 59% of these (9,521 infections) were in Gauteng. The next-worst province was the Western Cape (12%, or 1,143 cases).

This means that there have now been 1,877,143 laboratory-confirmed cases recorded in SA to date.

There were 148 Covid-19 related deaths in the past 24 hours, taking the total number of fatalities to 59,406 to date.

The NICD said there  were 607 hospital admissions in the past day, meaning that 10,736 people are now being treated in a public or private facility. 

Editor's note: TimesLIVE initially reported that premier David Makhura said one in three people in Gauteng have tested positive for Covid-19. Makhura had said one in three people who go for a test is “likely” to have the virus. We regret the error.