A total of 191 721 people received the COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday, as the country recorded 8 988 new COVID-19 cases.

This means the country has now administered 7 981 822 COVID-19 vaccinations, pushing the number of fully vaccinated adults to 3 212 974.

According to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), the number of laboratory-confirmed cases has risen to 2 470 746, representing a 19.8% positivity rate.

The majority of new infections were detected in the Western Cape and Gauteng, which accounted for 25% each, followed by KwaZulu-Natal (19%) and the Eastern Cape (9%).

In addition, 555 people lost the battle to COVID-19 complications, bringing the death toll to 72 992 since the outbreak.

“There has been an increase of 636 hospital admissions in the past 24 hours,” the NICD said.

In addition, there are now 15 788 patients receiving treatment in hospital out of 147 046 active cases.

According to the Department of Health, the number of those who have recuperated stands at 2 250 708, with a recovery rate of 91.1%.

The information is based on the 14 971 894 tests, 45 312 of which were performed in the last 24 hours.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said there have been 198 778 175 confirmed cases of COVID-19; 4 235 559 deaths, and 3 886 112 928 administered vaccine doses.

Global view

According to the WHO’s COVID-19 weekly epidemiological update, the global number of new cases reported last week was over 3.8 million, an 8% increase, compared to the previous week.

“This is an average of around 540 000 cases that were reported each day over the past week, compared to 490 000 cases reported daily the week before,” WHO said.

The organisation attributed this trend to a substantial peak in the Americas and Western Pacific regions.

Meanwhile, there are over 69 000 deaths reported this week, a 21% upsurge compared to the previous week.

WHO said the highest number of new fatalities was reported in the Americas and South-East Asia regions.

The cumulative number of cases reported globally is now nearly 194 million and the number of cumulative deaths exceeds four million. If these trends continue, the cumulative number of cases reported globally could exceed 200 million in the next two weeks.

Over the past week, the highest number of new cases were reported from the United States (500 332 new cases, 131% increase), Brazil (324 334 new cases, 13% increase), Indonesia (289 029 new cases, 17% decrease), the United Kingdom (282 920 new cases, 5% decrease), and India (265 836 new cases, similar to the previous week).

Globally, WHO said cases of the Alpha variant have been reported in 182 countries, while 131 have traces of the Beta variant, 81 have the Gamma variant and 132 have the Delta variant.

Source: South African Government News Agency