Covid-19 death toll more than 60,000 as new cases hit 12,222 in just one day

SA reached another grim Covid-19 milestone on Monday, as more than 60,000 people have now died since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in SA in March last year.

The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) said on Monday that there were 138 deaths recorded in the past 24 hours, taking the total fatalities to date to 60,038.

In the same period, there were 12,222 new Covid-19 cases identified — with Gauteng, again, accounting for the majority (8,408) of them. The new infections came at a positivity rate of 28.3%.

There have also been an increase of 512 hospital admissions in the past 24 hours, meaning that there are now 11,801 people being treated in SA's hospitals.

Lise Jamieson, a senior researcher for the Health Economics and Epidemiology Research Office — which is part of the Wits Health Consortium at the University of the Witwatersrand — said that, as of Monday evening, every single district in Gauteng had a “seven-day total incidence which is now higher than the peak of the second wave”.

In the West Rand there were 487 cases per 100,000 population, while in Tshwane there were 472 cases per 100,000 population. Johannesburg recorded 359 cases per 100,000 of the population, Ekurhuleni 295 cases per 100,000 of the population and Sedibeng 274 cases per 100,000 of the population.

“The peak incidence in Gauteng (426 cases per 100,000 population) is 81% more than the peak in wave two. Hospital admissions have also increased substantially, with the seven-day total of hospital admissions in West Rand being 64% higher than the peak in the second wave [while] Johannesburg is now at the same level that it was at the peak of the second wave. The seven-day total of hospital admissions in the remaining districts are now 79% to 93% of what it was in the second wave,” said Jamieson.

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