Cape Town – South Africa recorded 345 Covid-19-related deaths in a single day on Tuesday.
Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said 43 of the deceased were from the Eastern Cape, 116 from Gauteng, 89 from KwaZulu-Natal and 97 from the Western Cape. This brings the cumulative number of deaths to 8 884.
Western Cape Premier Alan Winde had said earlier on Tuesday that only 33 deaths in the province were new fatalities, with the remaining 60 deaths arising from a “backlog of people who had died at home and not at a healthcare facility”.
The KwaZulu-Natal Health Department also indicated that not all the deaths happen in the past 24 hours, but that due to late reporting and a high number of patients dying “as persons under investigation”, there can be a delay in the reporting.
A total of 521 318 confirmed Covid-19 cases have been recorded, Mkhize said. The number of recoveries currently stand at 363 751, which translates to a recovery rate of 69.8%.
For the first time since March, the rate at which Covid-19 cases are increasing daily in the country has started to decline, official data shows, largely attributed to a significant drop in the number of cases in Gauteng daily.
Since early July, the average daily case increases over seven days rose above 10 000 new cases a day, rising to a high of more than 12 000, and now declining again to just over 10 000.
Mkhize on Tuesday called on parents to ensure they immunised their children against illnesses, including measles, polio and meningitis, which were more dangerous for them than Covid-19.
He said that the Department of Health had noted a decline in this service due to fears associated with contracting the coronavirus.
Meanwhile, Taiwan provisionally approved the use of dexamethasone, a cheap and widely used steroid to treat the new coronavirus, as the island faces a shortfall of the antiviral drug remdesivir after the US bought nearly all global supplies.
IOL