---
title: "NICD confirms 5,096 new Covid infections in SA on Tuesday"
description: "One in five people testing for coronavirus infections on Tuesday had a positive result, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) said."
type: "NewsArticle"
publisher: "Daily Maverick"
site: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za"
section: "CORONAVIRUS"
author: "Estelle Ellis"
author_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/estelle-ellis/"
canonical_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-05-17-nicd-confirms-5096-new-covid-infections-in-sa-on-tuesday/"
published: "2022-05-17T22:56:57"
updated: "2022-05-18T00:48:26"
lang: "en-ZA"
word_count: 386
---

# NICD confirms 5,096 new Covid infections in SA on Tuesday

> One in five people testing for coronavirus infections on Tuesday had a positive result, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) said.

By Estelle Ellis · Published 18 May 2022, 00:56 SAST · Updated 18 May 2022, 02:48 SAST

## Content

The National Institute for Communicable Diseases’ ([NICD’s](https://www.nicd.ac.za/)) Sinenhlanhla Jimoh said there were 5,096 new cases of Covid-19 in South Africa on Tuesday. This brings the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 3,899,841. The increase represents a 20.9% positivity rate.

The National Department of Health on Tuesday reported another 41 deaths due to Covid-19 related complications, of which 12 had occurred in the previous 24 hours.

The majority of new cases on Tuesday were from Gauteng (36%), followed by KwaZulu-Natal (19%), the Western Cape (18%) and the Eastern Cape (11%).

The latest genomic surveillance report, tracing variants and subvariants of SARS-CoV-2 in South Africa, states that Omicron still dominates, with sublineages BA.4 and BA.5 increasing in prevalence in March (16%), and together they were dominant in April (64%).

BA.4 and BA.5 made up 96% of May sequences, but more data is needed to determine the prevalence. BA.3 continues to be detected at low levels.

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-05-17-gentlemans-agreement-despite-mining-ban-russia-scours-antarctica-for-massive-fossil-fuel-deposits/

Meanwhile, South Africa’s Sisonke team, led by professors Glenda Gray and Linda-Gail Bekker, published one of the first real-world studies on vaccine effectiveness against the Omicron variant in the [*New England Journal of Medicine*](https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2202061) on 4 May.

The Sisonke study made the Johnson & Johnson vaccine available early to health workers in South Africa – both for a first dose and for a booster dose.

The study found that a second dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine protected participants from hospitalisation and admission to intensive care units by up to 82% in the first two months after the second dose, compared with unvaccinated populations.

This analysis was possible after 240,000 Sisonke study participants received their second Johnson & Johnson vaccine in November and December 2021, when the Omicron variant caused the fourth wave in South Africa.

Gray, the lead author of the study, said: “The Sisonke study has contributed globally to data on both safety and effectiveness even against current variants of concern, and forms the backbone of the roll-out of the vaccine.”

Bekker said: “There is great utility of a single dose of the J&J vaccine in emergency situations, but it is very reassuring in this study to see two doses of J&J \[performing\] equally well \[as\] two doses of the Pfizer vaccine, and that once again our vaccines are protecting, despite the Omicron variant.” **DM/MC**

\[hearken id="daily-maverick/9472"\]