More than 4,000 Covid-19 deaths in SA, with 276,200 cases confirmed

SA has 276,242 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 4,079 deaths.

This is in an increase of 12,058 infections and 108 fatalities from figures released on Saturday night.

This was announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa on Sunday evening as he addressed the nation.

“A quarter of those who have died, passed away in the last week,” he said.

Ramaphosa described Covid-19 as the “gravest crisis in the history of our democracy”.

“The surge in infections ... has now arrived. The storm is upon us. More than a quarter of a million South Africans have been infected by the coronavirus, and we know many more infections have gone undetected,” the president said.

On Saturday, SA moved into the global top 10 in terms of confirmed infections.

According to the full figures provided by the health ministry after Ramaphosa's address, Gauteng now has 98,431 confirmed infections, an increase of 5,387 in the past 24 hours.

The Western Cape recorded 1,063 new cases for a total of 78,399 - and the Eastern Cape has 50,300 cases (an increase of 2,068).

Of the new deaths, 64 were recorded in Gauteng, 22 in the Eastern Cape, 15 in the Western Cape and seven in KwaZulu-Natal.

This means the Western Cape now has 2,348 fatalities, followed by the Eastern Cape with 686 and Gauteng with 644.

There are also a total of 134,874 recoveries recorded across SA, a recovery rate of 48.8%.

The figures were based on 2,154,391 tests so far, of which 45,821 were in the most recent 24-hour testing cycle.