There are now 46,395 active infectious cases in the province, a 4,169 increase from the previous week.
Despite this slight surge imposed on a plateau, the department said there are early signs of a decrease.
The positivity rate has dropped to 37%, hospitalisations have dropped by 8% and deaths by 17%.
However, with more than 46,000 active cases in the province, said Cloete, “The risk of being exposed is still very high and we are still telling people that early signs of a decline does not mean we are out of the woods. Gatherings still pose a very high risk.”
Another phenomenon that has shown up on graphs in the province is that more people under the age of 20 have been infected.
“A bigger portion than before of young people have been infected, but this has resulted in only a very small increase in admissions to hospital. We are not seeing more severe cases, so it’s just a case of picking up more numbers.
“It could be because we’ve been doing more testing and that more older people are now vaccinated. It could also be because schools opened, but this is very carefully monitored and managed on a school-by-school basis and, gladly, we are seeing a tailing off of those cases too.”
TimesLIVE