President Cyril Ramaphosa will address the nation at 8 pm tonight, Tuesday 22 March 2022, on developments in South Africa’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The president’s address will be broadcast and streamed on a range of government communication platforms and news channels.

SA records 566 new COVID-19 cases

South Africa on Monday recorded 566 new COVID-19 cases, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) has reported.

The figure brought the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 3 704 784 since March 2020. This increase represented a 3.9% positivity rate.

“Due to the ongoing audit exercise by the National Department of Health, there may be a backlog of COVID-19 mortality cases reported. Today, the department reports 9 deaths and of these, 4 occurred in the past 24 – 48 hours. This brings the total fatalities to 99 890 to date,” said the institute.

To date, 23 599 964 tests had been conducted in both public and private sectors.

A provincial breakdown of the statistics reveals that the majority of new cases on Monday were from Gauteng Province (41%), followed by Western Cape (25%).

“KwaZulu-Natal accounted for 21%; North West accounted for 4%; Mpumalanga accounted for 3%; Eastern Cape & Free State each accounted for 2% respectively; and Limpopo & Northern Cape each accounted for 1% respectively of today’s new cases,” said the NICD.

It said the 3.9% positivity rate was lower than Sunday’s 5.4%.

“The 7-day average is 5.6% today, which is higher than yesterday (5.5%). The 7-day moving average daily number of cases has decreased,” reads the statement. – SAnews.gov.za