More than 3,000 Covid-19 cases in SA, death toll up to 52

SA officially has more than 3,000 Covid-19 cases.

Health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize said there were 3,034 cases across SA, with the majority in Gauteng. There were also two additional reported deaths, taking the total to 52.

Mkhize was speaking at a virtual press briefing on Saturday night to discuss the “latest developments” on the Covid-19 pandemic.

This was a huge increase of 251 cases from the 2,783 announced on Friday night.

Gauteng was still the country’s epicentre, with 1,101 cases. In the Western Cape there were 836 confirmed cases, 604 in KwaZulu-Natal, 270 in the Eastern Cape, and 100 in Free State.

Mkhize said there were 26 cases in Limpopo, 25 in Mpumalanga, 24 in North West, and 16 in the Northern Cape. The minister said 31 cases were unallocated as more information was still pending on those cases.

Mkhize said 108,021 tests had been conducted to date.

Initially, he said, about “98%” of the tests were in the private sector, but this was changing because of community screening and testing programmes.

“Two weeks ago [we were testing] in the public sector about 1,000 or so a day, but as community screening raised momentum we've come to the point where, in the past few days, the numbers started to be more than 5,000 in the public sector per day.

“In the last 24 hours, for example, we've done 7,194 tests (in the public sector)," said Mkhize.

He said the country still wanted to test “many, many, many more” people.

This is a developing story.