11,500 new Covid-19 cases in 24 hours as positivity rate breaches 30% mark

SA recorded 11,552 new Covid-19 infections in the past 24 hours, with just more than 30% of tests done in this period coming back positive.

Health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize said on Saturday night that 37,817 tests fell in the past 24-hour cycle, which translates to a positivity rate of 30.54%. The government previously set a positivity rate benchmark of 10%.

The new infections take the total number of confirmed cases across SA to 994,911. This means SA will pass 1 million confirmed cases on Sunday night — becoming the 17th country to do so.

Mkhize also announced that 245 new Covid-19 related fatalities had been recorded in the past 24 hours, taking the national number of deaths to 26,521. Of the new cases, 118 were in the Eastern Cape, 57 in KwaZulu-Natal, 55 in the Western Cape, 12 in Gauteng and three in Mpumalanga.

So far, 839,194 recoveries have been recorded.

TimesLIVE