SOUTH AFRICA - OVER 13 MILLION ADULTS ARE NOW FULLY VACCINATED AGAINST COVID-19 ACROSS THE COUNTRY

This comes after 98 954 adults got the single dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine or the second shot of the Pfizer jab in the past 24 hours.

According to the Department of Health’s data, this pushes the total to 13 030 588 or 32.5% of the adult population who are now fully jabbed.  

Meanwhile, the country distributed 126 231 vaccine shots on Tuesday, of which 115 966 were given to the over 18s and 10 265 to children aged between 12 and 17.

This brings all the dispersed doses to 23 402 284 to date.

In addition, the country has now administered 15 688 101 first doses of which 229 604 were given to children.

The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) recorded 245 new COVID-19 cases, which brings the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 2 924 317.

The majority of new cases were recorded in Gauteng after 85 were confirmed to have contracted the virus.

Gauteng is followed by 38 infections in the Western Cape, 37 in KwaZulu-Natal, 33 in Free State, 14 in Mpumalanga, 13 in the Northern Cape, 10 in the North West, eight in the Eastern Cape and seven in Limpopo.

“This increase represents a 0.9% positivity rate,” the institute said, adding that the new infections were lower than the average number of cases per day over the seven preceding days.

Meanwhile, a further 35 COVID-19 related fatalities have been reported, pushing the death toll to 89 387.

South Africa has 3 735 patients who are currently receiving hospital treatment for COVID-19, of which 34 were admitted in the past 24 hours.