South Africa on Thursday recorded 7 238 new COVID-19, says the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD).
Representing a 24.8% positivity rate, the figure brought the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 3 915 258 and the National Department of Health has confirmed 31 new COVID-19 related deaths.
“Of these, 12 occurred in the past 24 – 48 hours. This brings the total fatalities to 100 898 to date.
To date, 24 992 827 tests have been conducted in both public and private sectors.
A provincial breakdown of the statistics reveals that the majority of new cases on Thursday were from Gauteng (34%) followed by Western Cape (23%).
“KwaZulu-Natal accounted for 15%; Eastern Cape accounted for 10% and Free State accounted for 6%. Northern Cape accounted for 5%; North West accounted for 4%; Mpumalanga accounted for 3% and Limpopo accounted for 1% of today’s cases,” said the Institute.
However, it is lower than Wednesday’s 22.6%. The 7-day average is 23.3%, higher than the previous day’s 23.1%.
“The 7-day average is (24.7%) today, and is lower than yesterday (25.1%),” read the statement.
On hospital admissions, the Institute said there had been an increase of 150 hospital admissions in the past 24 hours.