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By IOL Reporter, Reuters 
7h ago
Johannesburg / Cape Town – Over the past 24 hours, South Africa recorded 8,725 new Covid-19 cases and another 274 deaths, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said on Friday.
The country, which is now firmly on a second wave of coronavirus infections, has recorded 901,538 cases since the pandemic hit our shores in March.
The total number of deaths from the virus is now 24,285.
Mkhize also raised concerns about the number of young people now infected during a briefing on Friday in which he informed the nation of a new variant of the virus that has been identified.
This after dozens of young people who attended enrollment festivals and other year-end gatherings subsequently tested positive for Covid-19.
ACTIVE CASES, DEATHS AND RECOVERIES
The Western Cape currently has the highest number of active cases in the country with 31,272.
Of the 274 new Covid-19-related deaths that have been reported, 101 were from the Western Cape, 92 from the Eastern Cape, 56 from KwaZulu-Natal, 15 from Gauteng, 6 from the Free State and 4 from Mpumalanga.
The number of people who have recovered now stands at 783,818.
TESTS
To date, 6,051,986 tests have been completed with 40,751 new tests performed since the last report, Mkhize said.
NEW VARIANT COVID-19
The country has identified a new variant of the coronavirus that is driving a second wave of infections, days after Britain said it had also found a new variant of the virus driving cases.
“We have convened this public briefing today to announce that a variant of the SARS-COV-2 virus – currently referred to as variant 501.V2 – has been identified by our genomics scientists here in South Africa,” Mkhize tweeted.
“The evidence that has been collected, therefore, strongly suggests that the current second wave that we are experiencing is being driven by this new variant,” Mkhize added.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday it was in contact with South African researchers who identified the new variant.
The world body added that there was no indication that there were changes in the way the new strain of the virus behaved.
“We are working with them with our working group on the evolution of the SARS-COV-2 virus. They are growing the virus in the country and they are working with researchers to determine any changes in the behavior of the virus itself in terms of transmission.” WHO epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove said at a press conference in Geneva.
FASTER DISPERSION
Authorities said the new variant appeared to spread faster than the previous iteration, but that it was too early to know its severity and whether current vaccines would work against it.
“In the UK they have also identified a new variant … there are quite a few similarities between the two lineages … there are also a similar number of mutations,” Professor Tulio de Oliviera, a member of the government genomic consortium, told a briefing. televised.
IOL and Reuters
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