DURBAN - KwaZulu-Natal has started the festive season with 476 new Covid-19 daily cases.
On Wednesday, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases reported that KZN had recorded 476 new cases on December 1.
The province accounted for 6% of the new cases reported on December 1, with Gauteng (72%), the Western Cape (7%), Mpumalanga (4%), North West (4%), Limpopo (3%), Free State (2%) and the Eastern Cape (1%) accounting for the rest.
The new cases brought the total to 519 067 Covid-19 cases in the province, contributing 17.4% to the national total.
Numbers in the province started increasing from November 23.
KZN went from recording a low of 15 new Covid-19 daily cases on November 22 to a high of 259 new cases by month-end.
Daily cases started rising in the province from November 23.
On November 25, daily cases surpassed 50 at 68. Then from November 26, cases were in the 100s until dropping to 63 new Covid-19 daily cases. However, it breached 250 on November 30 with 259 new daily cases.
In the middle of November, the Daily News reported that KZN had been recording fewer than 50 new Covid-19 cases since November 9.
Prior to November 22, the lowest number of new Covid-19 cases was 17, with the highest being 66 on November 11.
On Wednesday the provincial government reported that Premier Sihle Zikalala was isolating after coming into close contact with someone who had tested positive for Covid-19.
Provincial spokesperson Lennox Mabaso said: “The people of KwaZulu-Natal are assured that the premier is well and does not have any symptoms of Covid-19.”
He said the premier would carry on working from home with strict adherence to all Covid-19 protocols.
“The premier wishes strength and speedy recovery to all citizens who are battling the pandemic. The KZN government is intensifying all efforts to beat and defeat the Covid 19 pandemic. This work includes ramping up the vaccination programmes across all the districts and the metropolitan areas in KZN,” Mabaso said.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, KZN Health MEC Nomagugu Simelane said that in 20 months, 14,789 people had died due to Covid-19-related illnesses in the province.
She said they were urging everyone from the age of 12 to get vaccinated against Covid-19.
“There’s a lot of false information out there, which is keeping people from getting vaccinated. That’s one of the points that we were emphasising today (Wednesday)… that the Covid-19 vaccine is just like any other, and there is no reason for people to be afraid of it. It enables the body to fight the virus if it enters your body,” Simelane said.
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