Cape Town - On the first of the 2021 South Africa recorded 16 726 new cases of Covid-19 and 418 more Covid-19 related deaths, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said on Friday.
The cumulative number of Covid-19 cases in South Africa is now 1 073 887 and the the total detected deaths has reached 28 887.
The Eastern Cape reported 66 Covid-related deaths on Friday, the Free State 8 , Gauteng 66, KwaZulu-Natal 134, Mpumalanga 6, and Western Cape 138.
The cumulative total of tests done to date is 6 659 318 with 50 110 tests conducted in the past 24 hours.
Mkhize said the 16 726 new cases represent a positivity rate of 33.4%.
The total recoveries are 887 701, representing a recovery rate of 82,6%.
South Africa currently has the 17th most confirmed coronavirus cases in the world.
According to Johns Hopkins University’s real-time tally, the United States has now recorded more than 20 million cases of Covid-19.
The US has so far registered 20,007,149 cases and 346,408 deaths in the pandemic, the Baltimore-based university said, making it the country with by far the highest official number of cases and the highest death toll.
The United Kingdom has recorded more than 50,000 new daily cases of the virus for the past four days.
Both Britain and South Africa are currently facing a second wave in Covid-19 cases as new variants of the coronavirus have been discovered in both countries.
IOL, Reuters, AFP