Vaccination was always the way to go

Global cases update:

• Cases have surpassed 521 million, while the death toll has breached 6.28 million; recoveries are at 491 million.
• The US has 84.238 million cases, accounting for 16% of global cases; the US death toll is 1.02 million. 
• India has 43.12 million cases and 524,241 deaths; Brazil has 30.68 million cases and 664,967 deaths.
• Shanghai’s health authorities are expected to ease the city's lockdown on 1 June in a "phased" plan to gradually return China's commercial hub to normal by late June. Daily infections there continue to fall.
• A Pfizer analysis suggests that, without Covid-19 vaccines, the global death toll would have been much higher. 
• The analysis suggests that the Pfizer vaccine alone likely saved more than 110,000 lives in 2021, the first year of the vaccination campaign.
• Globally, more than 11.7 billion vaccine doses have been administered across 184 countries at a rate of 17.2 million doses a day.

Africa cases update:

• Africa’s Covid-19 cases are at 12.04 million; fatalities are at 254,322.
• Morocco has 1.165 million reported cases, Nigeria 255,859, Ghana 161,280, Kenya 324,026.
• Southern Africa is facing a surge in Covid cases for a third consecutive week as winter approaches. 
• The increase has broken a two-month-long decline in overall infections recorded across the continent.
• The increase has been driven by a spike in SA where weekly recorded cases have quadrupled in the past three weeks. 
• Deaths have however not increased as quickly. 
• Africa’s previous four pandemic waves occurred around mid-year and year-end, driven mostly by new variants, winter, and high people movement during the holidays.

South Africa cases update:

• SA currently has the 30th highest caseload, at 3.891 million; 4,344 new cases were reported yesterday.
• The surge of new Covid cases is being driven by two Omicron sub-variants, BA.4 and BA.5.
• These sub-variants seem similar to the original strain of Omicron.
• Active cases are at 80,342; Kwazulu-Natal leads the way, with 33,095 active cases, followed by Gauteng with 18,354.
• There were 2 Covid-19 deaths reported yesterday; deaths are at 100,755.
• 3.71 million people (or 95,3%) have recovered from the virus.
• 24.885 million tests have been conducted since 5 March 2020; 20,361 tests were conducted yesterday; the SA positivity rate is 20,3%.
• 35.44 million vaccines have been administered in SA to date; 3,638 vaccines were administered yesterday.
• 17.967 million people, or 45,15% of the SA adult population, have been fully vaccinated.

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