COVID-19 Update

28 March , 2020

The National Institute for Communicable Diseases, a division of the National Health Laboratory Service along with the National Department of Health, is actively cleaning COVID-19 patient data to ensure that the information shared with the public is precise, consistence and transparent. Data cleaning is required to conduct deduplication of contents and to correct details in order to determine the most effective action in public health.

As such, figures may not always add up sequentially due to the activities being performed with regard to data cleaning and quality assurance of the dataset. As of March 28, 2020, the number of COVID-19 cases increased by 112 bringing the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases to 1187.

Table: Number of laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases by province.

We recognise the work done by healthcare professionals in the private and public health sectors as well as the drastic measures put in place by the government to curb further spread of the virus. However, we wish to remind the public that change is in the hand of every South African to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

There are three key things everyone should do:

• Practice good hygiene. That means washing your hands thoroughly for at least 20 seconds, with soap and water, including before and after eating, and after going to the toilet. It is vital that people cough and sneeze into a tissue or a flexed elbow, and discard the tissue into a bin after use.
• Secondly, everyone should be practising social/physical distancing. People should remain at home unless it is essential to go elsewhere, and when in public, keep at least 2 metres away from others.
• Thirdly, if people have been infected with COVID-19 or have been in close contact with a COVID-19 reported case, it is imperative that they self-isolate for 14 days.

We reassure South Africans that we are actively tracking trends of COVID-19 – both domestically and abroad – and adjusting our interventions to reduce the spread of the virus.