South Africa administered close to half a million vaccine doses on Monday, as the country records over 7, 000 new COVID-19 infections.

This means nearly five million adults have been fully inoculated after 247, 293 vaccine shots were administered in the last 24 hours.

Meanwhile, the infections continue to increase, with 7, 632 new COVID-19 cases having been identified in the country.

The majority of new cases were logged in KwaZulu-Natal (2,542), followed by Western Cape (1,634) and Eastern Cape (1,286).

According to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), this brings the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 2,698,605.

“This increase represents a 20.2% positivity rate,” the NICD said, adding that the seven-day moving average daily number of cases has decreased.

In addition, a further 163 people succumbed to the disease, bringing the death toll to 79,584 to date.