Covid infections declining but deaths continue to rise 

Herald Reporter
While the daily death toll dropped slightly to 14 yesterday and the number of new Covid-19 infections rose moderately to 2 689, the general trends expressed by the seven-day rolling averages continue to show infection rates falling and death rates rising.

The rolling average for infections fell for the seventh day running to 2 868, suggesting that some of the results yesterday and on Monday came from people who should have been tested over the weekend but delayed the process.

The rolling average for daily deaths rose from 9,4 to 10,6 as larger daily tolls this week than last week move the average up.

The average daily death rate has been rising almost consistently since the start of the present wave of infection, with just a couple of small dips, almost level pegging, seen on some weekends.

Hospitalisations on Monday rose to 426 with seven in intensive care and 42 diagnosed as severe.

Most of the rest are in the mild to moderate category, or have no symptoms.

The number of active cases inched down again to 48 202, with almost all of these recovering at home.

The peak number of people sick with Covid-19 reached 51 136 on Saturday last week.

The peak in active cases will occur after the peak in daily new infections since a lot of people from that peak are still sick as the infection rate falls.

South Africa has been seeing the same trends of falling infection rates but rising death rates.

Death rates tend to be affected by the infection rates a couple of weeks earlier since it takes one to three weeks for a very severe bout of Covid-19 to kill a patient.