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. 

• Global cases have surged past 10 million. The global death toll is over 500,000. The World Health Organization has warned that the pandemic has entered “a new and dangerous phase.”.
• Africa’s confirmed cases now number 348,172; fatalities are 9,070. Egypt has 65,188 reported cases, Nigeria has 24,567 and Ghana has 16,742.
• SA now has 138,134 confirmed cases and 2,456 deaths. This is an increase of 6,334 new cases; 68,925 people have recovered from the virus. The Western Cape has the highest number of confirmed cases, at 60,445 (accounting for 44% of the total); 1,764 deaths have been reported. Gauteng has 36,895 cases (accounting for 27% of the total) and 174 deaths, while the Eastern Cape has 25,099 cases (accounting for 18% of the total) and 387 deaths. KwaZulu-Natal has 8,433 cases and 109 deaths. 1,567,084 tests have been conducted since 5 March; 38,075 were in the past 24 hours.
• Health Minister Zweli Mkhize has said that SA’s surge of cases is expected to “dramatically increase in the coming weeks and press the country’s hospitals to the limit”, adding that more than 4,300 people have been hospitalized out of the 138,134 confirmed cases. 80% are in general wards and around 15% of them are receiving high-flow oxygen treatment. 11% of those hospitalized have severe cases and are in intensive care and of those more than 58% are on ventilation support.