South Africa now has over 58 000 Covid-19 infections

Johannesburg - South Africa now has over 58 000 confirmed cases of the Covid-19 coronavirus, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize announced on Thursday afternoon while speaking in Mthatha, Eastern Cape.

This is an increase of 3147 cases from Wednesday’s 55 421 cases. As of Wednesday night, the death toll stood at 1210.

Mkhize said the latest death toll would be announced later as health officials were still reconciling the numbers.

Mkhize also said that there were now over one million Covid-19 tests which had been conducted in the country. He said 1 028 399 tests had been conducted, of which, more than 532 000 tests had been done in the public sector. He said just under 30 000 tests had been conducted in the past 24 hours.

The country is currently in Day 77 of the national lockdown which has been eased to alert level three since the start of June, allowing more businesses and alcohol to be sold for the first time since late March.

Commenting on the rising infections in the Eastern Cape, Mkhize said the province had to work hard to ensure contacts were traced, isolated and quarantined. He warned that if this was not done, infections would continue to rise.

About the Free State province, Mkhize said the province had managed to slow the rate of infection after it had initially been growing rapidly after a church-linked event. He said the province was the first to aggressively slow the rate of infection.

And in the North West, where the numbers have now rocketed to over 700, he said officials were screening actively in the community and there was good cooperation with stakeholders including the mineral resources department and the mining community.

Mkhize said a tracking and tracing platform had been started by government and was currently in use in the Western Cape. He said he wanted the Eastern Cape to also take advantage of it and said the platform would be rolled out in the country in the coming weeks.