A patient wearing an oxygen mask is treated in a makeshift emergency unit at Steve Biko Academic Hospital in Pretoria, South Africa, Monday, Jan. 11, 2021, which is battling an ever-increasing number of Covid-19 patients.
(AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)JOHANNESBURG – South Africa is struggling to cope with a spike in COVID-19 cases that has already overwhelmed many hospitals, as people returning from widespread holiday travel have spread the country's more infectious coronavirus variant.
The U.S. ambassador to South Africa, Lana Marks, announced Monday that she had COVID-19 and spent 10 days in an intensive care unit and is now recuperating at her residence.
South Africa, with a population of 60 million, has reported 1.2 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, representing more than 30% of all the cases in Africa, which this week exceeded 3 million.
The 7-day rolling average of daily deaths in South Africa has risen about 75% over the past two weeks, from 0.49 deaths per 100,000 people on Dec. 27 to 0.86 deaths per 100,000 people on Jan. 10.