South Africa reports 24-hour record of 1,160 new virus cases
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — South Africa on Sunday reported 1,160 new coronavirus infections, the highest daily number since the first case was recorded in March, data released by the health ministry showed
"As of today, the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in South Africa is 15,515 with 1,160 new cases identified in the last 24 hour cycle of testing," said the ministry statement.
The Western Cape province, popular with tourists, accounted for nearly 60 percent of the national numbers.
The numbers of deaths rose by three to 263 from Saturday.
Africa's most industrialised economy has the highest numbers of infections in Africa, followed by Egypt which has so far recorded 11,719 COVID-19 cases, including 612 deaths.
The country has been under a lockdown since March 27 — one of the world's most stringent confinements which include a ban on the sale of cigarettes and alcohol.
It has since embarked on an aggressive mass-testing strategy with 460,873 people tested so far.
But some health experts are beginning to see the limits of the country's lauded mass screening strategy, with results taking up to two weeks to come through.
Government has started to partially ease the lockdown regulations and is doing so in phases.
The economic costs of the lockdown have stoked disagreement in some quarters, with at least one advisor recently criticising certain aspects of the restrictions.
The opposition has also grown increasingly critical of the administration of President Cyril Ramaphosa's response to the outbreak.
The main opposition Democratic Alliance party on Thursday filed a legal suit challenging the rationale behind some of the coronavirus lockdown rules.
On Sunday Health Minister Zweli Mkhize came to Ramaphosa's defence and appealed for national unity in the fight against coronavirus.
"We need to be working together, we need to be united, we need to be strong to face this pandemic," he said in a eulogy at a memorial for a senior ruling ANC official and medical doctor who succumbed to COVID-19 related illness.
Doctor Clarence Mini died last week aged 69 after being hospitalised for more than a month.
He said Ramaphosa was doing "outstanding" work and that his decisions were informed by science.
"When there are people who are concerned whether there is science behind the decisions taken, there can only be science about it because we work with a whole group of medical experts who have various views.
"But at the end of the day we remain confident that the approaches we have taken are the best.
"There is a lot that is unknown about the disease which we might actually teach the world about or learn from the world about."
He added: "We just need to work together united and strong — until we see this outbreak through."
Follow this page for updates on a mysterious pneumonia outbreak that has struck dozens of people in China.
New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says on Sunday that he had contracted COVID-19, testing positive at a key point in his flailing campaign for re-election.
Hipkins saYS on his official social media feed that he would need to isolate for up to five days -- less than two weeks before his country's general election.
The leader of the centre-left Labour Party said he started to experience cold symptoms on Saturday and had cancelled most of his weekend engagements. — AFP
The World Health Organization and US health authorities say Friday they are closely monitoring a new variant of COVID-19, although the potential impact of BA.2.86 is currently unknown.
The WHO classified the new variant as one under surveillance "due to the large number (more than 30) of spike gene mutations it carries", it wrote in a bulletin about the pandemic late Thursday.
So far, the variant has only been detected in Israel, Denmark and the United States. — AFP
The World Health Organization says on Friday that the number of new COVID-19 cases reported worldwide rose by 80% in the last month, days after designating a new "variant of interest".
The WHO declared in May that Covid is no longer a global health emergency, but has warned that the virus will continue to circulate and mutate, causing occasional spikes in infections, hospitalisations and deaths.
In its weekly update, the UN agency said that nations reported nearly 1.5 million new cases from July 10 to August 6, an 80% increase compared to the previous 28 days. — AFP
The head of US intelligence says that there was no evidence that the COVID-19 virus was created in the Chinese government's Wuhan research lab.
In a declassified report, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) says they had no information backing recent claims that three scientists at the lab were some of the very first infected with COVID-19 and may have created the virus themselves.
Drawing on intelligence collected by various member agencies of the US intelligence community (IC), the ODNI report says some scientists at the Wuhan lab had done genetic engineering of coronaviruses similar to COVID-19. — AFP
Boris Johnson deliberately misled MPs over Covid lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street when he was prime minister, a UK parliament committee ruled on Thursday.
The cross-party Privileges Committee said Johnson, 58, would have been suspended as an MP for 90 days for "repeated contempts (of parliament) and for seeking to undermine the parliamentary process".
But he avoided any formal sanction by his peers in the House of Commons by resigning as an MP last week.
In his resignation statement last Friday, Johnson pre-empted publication of the committee's conclusions, claiming a political stitch-up, even though the body has a majority from his own party.
He was unrepentant again on Thursday, accusing the committee of being "anti-democratic... to bring about what is intended to be the final knife-thrust in a protracted political assassination".
Calling it "beneath contempt", he said it was "for the people of this to decide who sits in parliament, not Harriet Harman", the veteran opposition Labour MP who chaired the seven-person committee. — AFP
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