South Africa detected 550 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, bringing the total to 4 001 444 laboratory-confirmed cases.

According to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), most cases were recorded in Gauteng after 262 people were confirmed to have contracted the virus.

Meanwhile, 121 cases were recorded in the Western Cape, 59 in KwaZulu-Natal, 28 in the Eastern Cape, 27 in Mpumalanga and 23 in Free State, while the rest of the provinces logged less than 20 infections.

The Department of Health said four people lost their lives to COVID-19, of which three occurred in the past 48 hours.

This means the country now has a death toll of 101 939 to date.

The latest data also show that there are currently 1 038 patients who are receiving hospital treatment, with 11 admitted since the last reporting cycle.

The department administered 13 941 COVID-19 vaccine doses of which 1 656 were given to children in the last 24 hours, bringing the total to 37 077 459.

Global view

Globally, during the week of 11 to 17 July 2022, the number of weekly cases plateaued, with just under 6.3 million new cases after an increasing trend for the past five weeks.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the reported number of new weekly deaths increased by 11 000.

At the regional level, the WHO said the number of new weekly cases increased in the Western Pacific region, the region of the Americas and the South-East Asia region, while it decreased in Africa and Europe.

Meanwhile, the number of new weekly cases in the Eastern Mediterranean region was similar to the figure reported during the previous week.

“Current trends in reported COVID-19 cases and deaths should be interpreted with caution as several countries have been progressively changing COVID-19 testing strategies, resulting in lower overall numbers of tests performed and consequently lower numbers of cases detected,” the agency explained, adding that data is continuously updated to incorporate regular changes made by countries retrospectively.

At the country level, the highest numbers of new weekly cases were reported from the United States (866 479), France (757 830), Italy (718 925), Germany (602 930), and Japan (559 111).

The highest numbers of new weekly deaths were recorded in the United States (2 345), Brazil (1 751), Italy (784), Spain (610), and China (576).

As of 17 July 2022, over 559 million confirmed cases and over 6.3 million deaths have been reported globally.

Source: South African Government News Agency