South Africa sees record jump in coronavirus cases

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South Africa sees record jump in coronavirus cases

8:13 CAT | 05 Jun 2020

Fumigation at Rhodesfield Technical High School in Kempton Park in preparation of the Opening of schools under Level 3 Lockdown. [Photo: GCIS]

South Africa recorded 3,267 novel coronavirus cases in 24 hours, the biggest jump since the pandemic hit the country.

The country now has a total of 40,792 infections, the health ministry said. It saw a rise of 56 deaths for a total of 848 fatalities.

More than half of the cases are in the Western Cape region where health services are under pressure.

The Eastern Cape has also seen a rise in cases and now surpasses Gauteng as the province with the second-highest infections.

The department said recoveries stand at 21,311 and 820,675 tests conducted.

As of today, the cumulative number of confirmed #COVID19 is 40 792, the total number of deaths is 848 and the recoveries to date are 21 311, which translates to a recovery rate of 52,24%. pic.twitter.com/1jnBtsHC8p

— Dr Zweli Mkhize (@DrZweliMkhize) June 4, 2020

Globally, coronavirus cases topped 6.5 million globally on Thursday, while deaths have exceeded 388,000, with more than 3.2 million recoveries.

As many as 45% of people who contract the virus don’t show any symptoms, according to a paper published Wednesday in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.

Researchers at Scripps Research Translational Institute reviewed studies of 16 different populations infected with the new coronavirus and examined how many showed no signs of illness. They concluded that asymptomatic people may account for 40% to 45% of infections.

They also found that those individuals can transmit the virus to others for an extended period, perhaps longer than 14 days.

Winter is coming

Energy group Eskom has outlined its plans for winter load shedding, based on current usage and trajectories.

Presenting to parliament on Wednesday (3 June), chief executive officer Andre de Ruyter said that the coronavirus lockdown has led to a direct decline in electricity usage in the country.

He added that there has been a clear increase in electricity usage since the move to level 4 lockdown.

De Ruyter said that the lockdown also provided Eskom with an opportunity to conduct maintenance on its plants, with the power utility’s new base scenario shifting from an envisaged 31 days of stage 1 load shedding to just three days during the winter period.

However, De Ruyter stressed that Eskom’s systems are still unpredictable.

“It is important to recognise that due to the unreliability and unpredictability of the system, the risk of load shedding remains,” he said.

“This will be the reality until after the 18 months of reliability maintenance, which will last until August 2021.”