Hands | Stronger Together | Helpers - Backabuddy South Africa celebrates over 300 000 COVID-19 recoveries!
Photo Credit: Revenue Hub

Today South Africa can celebrate over 1 million COVID-19 recoveries in the country, while finally seeing a decline in active cases after 47 consecutive days of increases.

 

South Africa (13 January 2021) – In the past 24 hours, South Africa has seen a massive increase in recoveries, taking us over the 1 million mark! The country has also seen a decrease in active cases!

While the South African Government and many mainstream media News sites push the “total cases”, here at Good Things Guy, we like to look at the same numbers in a different way – a way that breaks down that big number into what it really means! And by doing this, we are able to see that our recoveries far outweigh our active cases.

By breaking it down, we can report that today that we have a total of 206,291 active cases and can celebrate 1,019,123 recoveries!!! Also, we currently have a 96,8% recovery rate in closed cases and are making our way to even more recoveries every single day.

The country has seen an alarming increase in active cases since the 27th of November 2020, but today for the first time in 47 days, we can report that South Africa has seen a massive drop in active cases! It also seems that positive tests are dropping; after recording more than 20,000 new COVID-19 cases every day since last week Wednesday to Saturday, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said in a statement on Tuesday that only 13,105 new cases have been identified since the last report.

This feels like some good news, but we cannot celebrate yet as we need more data and time to understand if we have, in fact, reached the peak of the second wave… but it does feel like a breath of fresh air in a sea of trauma.

We are also currently 16 in the world for overall cases, and number 14 in total active cases (at one stage we were number 5 in both these categories)!!!

South Africa Celebrates Over 1 million COVID-19 Recoveries!
Photo Cred: Brent Lindeque | Good Things Guy
South Africa Celebrates Over 1 million COVID-19 Recoveries!
Photo Cred: Brent Lindeque | Good Things Guy

COVID-19 is the greatest global shock in decades. Millions of lives have been lost, and the world’s economy likely faces the worst recession since the 1930s. The resulting loss of employment and income will cause further damage to livelihoods, health, and sustainable development.

The numbers can often seem confusing. As of today, South Africa has conducted 7,287,060 tests and had 1,259,748 total positive results, but positive results change daily as people recover, so even though there have had over 1,2 million positive results, we have also had over 1 million recoveries. See confusing.

Here is a different way to report the numbers while still using the same numbers:

  • Recoveries: 1,019,123 (45,858 more than yesterday)
  • Active Cases: 206,291 (33,508 LESS than yesterday)
  • Deaths: 34,334 (755 more than yesterday)

We know that this pandemic is significant, and many will suffer, and we also know not everyone will survive, but the majority of South Africa (and the globe) will recover!

Currently, the Worldometers website states that over 97% of global cases (that are no longer active) have recovered. In comparison, South Africa’s closed recovery rate sits at around 96,8% (closed cases are the recoveries versus deaths after moving from active).

South Africa Celebrates Over 1 million COVID-19 Recoveries!
Photo Cred: Worldometer

Here in South Africa, a COVID-19 support group has been created on Facebook for people who have recovered, and people who are looking for hope. Everyday South Africans are sharing their inspirational recovery stories which really does bring a different perspective to this pandemic.

Societies need to protect themselves, and to recover, as quickly as possible. But we cannot go back to the way we did things before. Increasing numbers of infectious diseases, including HIV/AIDS, SARS and Ebola, have made the jump from wildlife to humans – and all available evidence suggests that COVID-19 has followed the same route. Once human-to-human transmission of COVID-19 began, national and international surveillance and response systems were not strong or fast enough to completely halt transmission. And as infections spread, a lack of universal health coverage has left billions of people, including many in rich countries, without reliable and affordable access to medical treatment. Massive inequalities have meant that deaths and loss of livelihoods have been strongly driven by socioeconomic status, often compounded by gender and minority status.

Attempting to save money by neglecting environmental protection, emergency preparedness, health systems, and social safety nets, has proven to be a false economy – and the bill is now being paid many times over. The world cannot afford repeated disasters on the scale of COVID-19, whether they are triggered by the next pandemic, or from mounting environmental damage and climate change. Going back to “normal” is not good enough.

In adversity, the crisis has also brought out some of the best in our societies, from solidarity among neighbours, to the bravery of health and other key workers in facing down risks to their own health to serve their communities, to countries working together to provide emergency relief or to research treatments and vaccines. The “lockdown” measures that have been necessary to control the spread of COVID-19 have slowed economic activity, and disrupted lives – but have also given some glimpses of a possible brighter future. In some places, pollution levels have dropped to such an extent that people have breathed clean air, or have seen blue skies and clear waters, or have been able to walk and cycle safely with their children – for the first times in their lives. The use of digital technology has accelerated new ways of working and connecting with each other, from reducing time spent commuting, to more flexible ways of studying, to carrying out medical consultations remotely, to spending more time with our families. Opinion polls from around the world show that people want to protect the environment, and preserve the positives that have emerged from the crisis, as we recover.

Let’s hope that the lockdown in South Africa has achieved the same great results from around the world. And as always, thank you to all the incredible frontline heroes who are helping us get through this.


Sources: SA Government | Worldometer 
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About the Author

Brent Lindeque is the founder and editor in charge at Good Things Guy.

Recognised as one of the Mail and Guardian’s Top 200 Young South African’s as well as a Primedia LeadSA Hero, Brent is a change maker, thought leader, radio host, foodie, vlogger, writer and all round good guy.

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