COVID-19 daily tracker

The COVID-19 daily tracker is an easy guide to daily developments of this pandemic, globally and for Sub-Saharan Africa and South Africa specifically. The PDF (see link in email body, top right) contains a series of informative graphs. 

• The global total is 6,452,391 cases, and 382,479 deaths have been confirmed. Recoveries from the virus have increased to 3,066,698.
• Confirmed cases in Africa now stand at 157,241; fatalities on the continent are 4,472. The World Health Organisation noted that Africa is the least affected region globally, with 1.5% of the world's reported COVID-19 cases and 0.1% of the world's deaths. This is despite the continent’s fragile health systems, lack of access to preventative measures, barriers to testing, and potentially vulnerable populations. It was noted that Africa has a comparatively young population, lower rates of obesity, and a familiarity with infectious-disease outbreaks. However, low levels of testing might be artificially lowering reported infection rates.
• SA now has 35,812 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 755 deaths. This is an increase of 1,455 new cases; 18,313 people have recovered from the virus. The Western Cape has the highest number of confirmed cases, at 23,583 (accounting for 66% of the total); 568 deaths have been reported. The Eastern Cape has surpassed Gauteng; it has 4,324 cases and 88 deaths. Gauteng has 4,276 cases (accounting for 12% of the total), and 33 deaths, while KwaZulu-Natal has 2,637 cases and 53 deaths. 
• The South African High Court ruled yesterday that the revised lockdown regulations implemented by the government as part of a phased-in Level 3 re-opening of the economy are “unconstitutional and invalid”. The court questioned the rationality of some of the regulations imposed by the government to curb the spread of the virus. The court has given the state two weeks to amend the regulations.