South Africa has recorded 1 659 new COVID-19 cases bringing the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 3 735 578.

This increase represents a 7.5% positivity rate, said the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) in a statement.

“Due to the ongoing audit exercise by the National Department of Health (NDoH), there may be a backlog of COVID-19 mortality cases reported. Today, the NDoH reports 16 deaths, and of these, one occurred in the past 24 – 48 hours. This brings the total fatalities to 100,132 to date,” it said on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, there has been an increase of 28 hospital admissions in the past 24 hours while 24 116 414 tests were conducted in both the public and private sectors.

The majority of new cases are from Gauteng province (47%), followed by the Western Cape (23%).

KwaZulu-Natal accounted for 16%, Eastern Cape accounted for 6%, Free State and Mpumalanga each accounted for 2%, Limpopo, Northern Cape and North West each accounted for 1% of new cases.

Source: South African Government News Agency