There were 13,021 coronavirus cases and 238 deaths in South Africa in the last 24 hours on Saturday, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) has said.
The death toll has now reached nearly 77,000, the NCID said.
The country was also rolling out its vaccination programme, but there were more women than men who were vaccinating against a possible fourth wave, the health ministry said.
“There will be a fourth wave but we don’t know when or which variant, or how severe it will be. But we have to protect ourselves by vaccinating,” Health Ministry Deputy Director-General Nicholas Crisp said.
“The age group of 35 to 49 years had a good start but have not sustained their interest,” he said, as he encouraging these age groups to get the jab.
According to the statistics for Covid-19 registrations, some 3,035,017 people in the age group of 35 to 39 years old have registered, and 1,929,586 have registered in the age group 50-59 years.
In addition, the above 60 age group have some 3,459,374 registered for the vaccine, and some 813,363 health workers were also registered, the Covid-19 statistics showed.
South Africa had to-date administered 9,185,756 vaccines, with 2,021,520 people receiving the single dose Johnson and Johnson vaccine, while 7,164,236 have received the double dose Pfizer vaccine, Crisp said.
By the end of December, the country needed to have vaccinated 28 million people, he added.
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NM/as/APA