There were 257 492 COVID-19 vaccine doses that were administered on Wednesday, the highest number of shots administered since the start of the inoculation rollout programme.
This means there is now a total of 5 831 389 administered jabs in South Africa, while 2 028 397 adults have been fully vaccinated.
According to the Department of Health, 73 225 people have signed up on the Electronic Vaccination Data System (EVDS) in the past 24 hours, pushing the cumulative number to 6 440 450.
Meanwhile, 16 240 new COVID-19 infections have been detected in South Africa, bringing the number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 2 327 472.
According to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), the latest peak increase represents a 27.5% positivity rate.
The majority of new cases are from Gauteng (32%), followed by the Western Cape (21%) and KwaZulu-Natal (11%).
“The total number of cases today is higher than yesterday and higher than the average number of new cases per day over the seven preceding days,” the NICD said on Wednesday, adding that the seven-day moving average daily number of cases is still dropping.
In addition, 516 more people lost their lives due to COVID-19 complications, pushing the death toll to 68 192.
“There has been an increase of 831 hospital admissions in the past 24 hours,” the public health institute said.
This means there are 17 286 patients who are currently receiving treatment in hospitals across the country out of the 160 462 active cases.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), as of 21 July, there have been 191 148 056 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 4 109 303 deaths. – SAnews.gov.za
