Covid-19 recoveries in SA climb to 165,591 as deaths surge past 4,500

Health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize said in an update on the pandemic on Thursday evening that the cumulative number of infections in the country was 324,221.

Nationally, there have been 13,172 new infections reported in the last 24-hour cycle.

There have been 165,591 Covid-19 recoveries in South Africa.

The countrywide death toll has risen to 4,669. A record number of deaths were recorded over the last 24 hours: 216.

Seven of them were from Mpumalanga, 10 from the Free State, 25 from the Eastern Cape,  41 from KwaZulu-Natal, 47 from the Western Cape and 86 from Gauteng. 

The breakdown of infections and recoveries by province is as follows:

The total number of tests conducted to date is 2,324,923 with 46,796 new tests conducted since the last report.

The rising number of positive cases on Thursday evening saw SA ranked as the sixth worst-hit nation in terms of caseload in the world on Worldometer, overtaking - for now - the UK, Spain, Mexico and Chile.

Despite the surge in cases, SA was amongst the lowest when it came to the number of fatalities per one million of the population out of the top 10 countries ranked on Wednesday.

While the death and infection statistics provide a daily snapshot of the health impact of the pandemic, its broader impact on jobs and the economy have been laid bare by a national consortium of 30 social science researchers from five universities.

Times Select reported on Thursday that a study, the National Income Dynamics Study - Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey (Nids-Cram), conducted by the consortium from May, painted a grim picture.

Three million South Africans lost their jobs between February and April and almost half the population ran out of money to buy food.

TimesLIVE this week published a guide, compiled by GroundUp, on how to access mental health services during the lockdown.