Health Minister Zweli Mkhize has announced 121 more Covid-19 related deaths, 1985 new infections and over 540 000 recoveries for South Africa to date.
Johannesburg - Health Minister Zweli Mkhize has announced 121 more Covid-19 related deaths and 1985 new infections on Monday night.
This takes South Africa’s Covid-19 death toll to 14 149, and infections to over 627 041.
South Africa has the sixth most Covid-19 infections in the world, behind only the USA, Brazil, India and Russia. Peru recently overtook South Africa to become the country with the fifth most infections in the world.
Although the number of new infections has slowed considerably, as has the rate of testing in the past week, daily deaths are also starting to slow, although they are still over 100 per day.
The Department of Health said it had now tested almost 3.7 million people in the private and public sector, with over 18 800 tests conducted in the past 24 hours.
South Africa’s coronavirus death toll now stands at 14 149.
The Western Cape still has the most deaths, with 3893, Gauteng with 3592, Eastern Cape with 2442 and KZN, with 2139, have the most fatalities in the country.
Of the latest 121 deaths, Mkhize said the most deaths came from the Western Cape, Limpopo, Eastern Cape, Gauteng and the Free State provinces.
Western Cape - 24
Limpopo - 23
Gauteng - 20
Eastern Cape - 20
Free State - 16
Northern Cape - 9
North West - 8
KZN - 1
“This brings the cumulative total of reported Covid-19 related deaths to 14 149,” said the minister.
“We convey our condolences to the loved ones of the departed and thank the health care workers who treated the deceased.
“The number of recoveries currently stands at 540 923 which translates to a recovery rate of 86%,” said Mkhize.
Meanwhile, Wits University vaccinologist Professor Shabir Madhi told eNCA on Monday night that the signs were ‘fairly positive’ as cases were on the decline.
He said community transmissions were slowingly and that the positivity rate had almost halved between level 5 and level, going from 27% to 15% currently.
Madhi said they were expected further decreases in the next few weeks, but stressed it was not the time for Covid-19 complacency.
IOL