CAPE TOWN - South Africa recorded 585 new Covid-19 cases and 40 more deaths on Thursday, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) said.
“Today the institute reports 585 new Covid-19 cases that have been identified in South Africa, which brings the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 2 927 499. This increase represents a 1.7% positivity rate.
“As per the National Department of Health, a further 40 Covid-19 related deaths have been reported, bringing total fatalities to 89 555 to date.
“A total of 19 032 662 tests have been conducted in both public and private sectors,” the NICD said.
According to the organisation, most new cases for Wednesday came from Gauteng province which accounted for 33% of cases, followed by KwaZulu-Natal which accounted for 18% of cases.
The Western Cape accounted for 16%, Eastern Cape for 10%, Mpumalanga for 7% the Free State for 6%, North West for 4%, the Northern Cape 3% and Limpopo 2% of Thursday’s new cases.
The NICD said the proportion of new cases/total new cases tested for Thursday is 1.7%, which is higher than that which was recorded on Wednesday (1.6%).
The organisation said there has been an increase in hospital admissions in the past 24 hours as 33 patients were admitted.