Africa-Press – South-Africa. THE National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) reports 26 976 new Covid-19 cases and 54 Covid-19 related deaths on Wednesday.
More than 83 800 Covid-19 tests were conducted, revealing a 32.2% positivity rate in the last 24 hours.
On Tuesday, a 34.9% positivity rate was recorded from 68 437.
This represents a large increase in the amount of the Covid-19 tests being conducted on Wednesday.
Furthermore, there has been an increase of 620 hospital admissions and 96 535 vaccines administered in the last 24 hours, the NICD reports
Professor Alex Welte, an epidemiologist and research professor from the South African Centre for Epidemiological Modelling and Analysis at Stellenbosch University explains the increase in testing.
“You can’t compare, in a precise way, this week’s total of cases to last week’s because now it’s official that we are in the next wave and therefore people are scrambling to test more so we’re catching a greater fraction this week than last week,” he told CapeTalk on Tuesday morning.
“So we can’t say reliably that cases doubled this week relative to last week because the behaviour has changed and that’s okay too,” he added.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation (WHO) regional director for Africa Matshidiso Moeti reports the fastest surge of Covid-19 in Africa since May 2020.
WHO director-general Tedros Ghebreyesus said “Omicron is spreading at a rate we have not seen with any previous variant.”
Omicron is spreading at a rate we have not seen with any previous variant. I need to be very clear: vaccines alone will not get any country out of this crisis.
It’s not vaccines instead of masks, distancing, ventilation or hand hygiene.
Do it all. Do it consistently. Do it well. pic.twitter.com/YAVfJXsviQ
IOL
For More News And Analysis About South-Africa Follow Africa-Press
