There were 39 654 COVID-19 tests conducted in the last 24 hours, with 3 658 new cases reported across the country.

According to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), this represents a 9.2% positivity rate.

Of the latest infections, Gauteng is leading with 814 cases, followed by 745 in the Western Cape, 329 in the Eastern Cape, 305 in Limpopo and 202 in the North West.

This means the country now has 3 564 578 laboratory-confirmed cases since the outbreak.

In addition, 30 more patients lost their battle to COVID-19 related complications, pushing the tally to 93 551 to date.

Meanwhile, hospital admissions went up by 198 to 7 363 since the last reporting cycle.

According to the Department of Health, 85 885 COVID-19 vaccine doses were administered on Tuesday, bringing the total to 29 084 975.

The department said 16 125 558 or 40.52% adults are now fully jabbed, while over one million vaccine doses have been given to children aged between the ages of 12 and 17.

Globally, as of 18 January 2022, there have been 328 532 929 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 5 542 359 deaths, reported to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Global view

Globally, the number of new COVID-19 cases increased between 10 and 16 January 2022, while deaths remained similar to that reported during the previous week.

According to the WHO, over 18 million new cases were reported this week, a 20% jump compared to the previous week in all regions.

Meanwhile, over 45 000 new fatalities were recorded.

“Despite a slowdown of the increase in case incidence at the global level, all regions reported an increase in the incidence of weekly cases except for the African region, which reported a 27% decrease,” the agency said on Tuesday.

The highest numbers of new cases were reported from the United States (4 688 466 new cases, similar to previous week’s figures), France (2 012 943 new cases, a 26% increase), India (1 594 160 new cases, a 150% increase), Italy (1 268 153 new cases, a 25% increase), and the United Kingdom (813 326 new cases, a 33% decrease).

Among the 405 739 sequences with specimens collected in the last 30 days, 71.9% were Omicron, 28% were Delta, less than 0.1% were Gamma, Alpha and other circulating variants.

Source: South African Government News Agency