Cape Town– South Africa recorded 305 new Covid-19 cases and 48 deaths on Wednesday, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) has said.
“Today, the institute reports 305 new Covid-19 cases that have been identified in South Africa, which brings the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 2 924 622.
“This increase represents a 0.9 percent positivity rate.
“As per the National Department of Health, a further 48 Covid-19 related deaths have been reported, bringing total fatalities to 89 435 to date.
“A total of 18 802 232 tests have been conducted in both public and private sectors,” the NICD said.
The organisation said that most of Wednesday’s cases were reported in Gauteng, with 30 percent of cases, followed by the Western Cape accounting for 19 percent of cases. KwaZulu-Natal accounted for 14 percent of cases, the Free State for 9 percent and the North West for 8 percent of cases.
Mpumalanga and the Northern Cape accounted for 7 percent of cases each, Eastern Cape accounted for 6 percent and Limpopo accounted for 3 percent of new cases.
The NICD said today’s cases (305) were higher than that of Tuesday (245).
In the past 24 hours, the NICD also reported that there had been 33 new hospital admissions.
According to the African News Agency (ANA), healthcare workers are now able to receive Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 booster shots.
It said healthcare workers who received their initial dose during the Sisonke study that ran between February and May 2021, have now been invited to participate in the Sisonke 2 study.
The Department of Health and the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) said that close to 500 000 participants were eligible to receive their booster shots.
At this stage, only J&J jabs will be available to healthcare workers. However, the Pfizer booster may become available in the upcoming months, the publication reports.
IOL