By IOL Reporter 
Jul 17, 2021
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Cape Town – South Africa recorded 291 deaths and 14 701 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours, the National Health Department said on Saturday.
“As of today the cumulative number of #Covid-19 cases identified in SA is 2 283 880 with 14 701 new cases reported,” the department said on Twitter.
“Today 291 deaths have been reported bringing the total to 66 676 deaths. The cumulative number of recoveries now stand at 2 028 881 with a recovery rate of 88.8%.”
The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) said that the new cases represented a 29.1% positivity rate.
To date, 14 205 299 tests have been conducted in both public and private sectors and 5 076 330 vaccines were administered.
The NICD said that the majority of new cases were recorded in Gauteng (43%), followed by Western Cape (16%).
“Limpopo accounted for 10%; North West accounted for 8%; KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga each accounted for 7%; Eastern Cape accounted for 5%; Free State accounted for 3%; and Northern Cape accounted for 1% of today’s new cases.”
The total number of cases today was lower than yesterday’s 15 939 new cases and lower than the average number of new cases per day over the 7 preceding days (14 941).
“The 7-day moving average daily number of cases has decreased,” the NICD said.
“There has been an increase of 546 hospital admissions in the past 24 hours.”
IOL