Time series data of COVID-19 cases (rT-PCR-confirmed), hospitalisations (laboratory-confirmed), and hospital-associated deaths (laboratory confirmed) in South Africa, by imputed dates of symptom onset, from the start of the pandemic in March 2020 through April 2022. These data were used to estimate the time-varying reproduction number (R) in South Africa, as described in https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.07.22.22277932v1.full.