The genome surveillance report from National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) of South Africa reveals that about 74 percent of genomes from the recent uptick of Covid-19 cases in the country was of Omicron variant.  

According to daily surge data from NICD, which continues to provide laboratory-based surveillance to inform the public health response towards COVID-19 in South Africa, the country reported 8561 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, taking the  total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 2,976,613 so far. This increase represents a 16.5 percent test positivity rate.  

The majority of new cases today were from Gauteng (72%), followed by Western Cape (7%). KwaZulu-Natal accounted for 6 percent. Mpumalanga and North West each accounted for 4 percent respectively. Limpopo (3%), Free State (2%) and Eastern Cape (1%). Northern Cape accounted for less than 1 percent of the new cases registered in the past 24 hours, said the National Department of Health.

As per the National Department of Health, a further 28 COVID-19 related deaths have been reported, bringing total fatalities to 89,871 to date in South Africa, where the emergence of the rapidly spreading new variant of SARS CoV-2 was detected with a sudden surge of Covid-19 cases since 14th of November.  The Department also informed that 19,529,031 tests have been conducted in both public and private sectors in the last 24 hours.