Highest daily Covid-19 death toll in SA as 806 people die in 24 hours

SA recorded 806 new Covid-19 related deaths in the past 24 hours, the most single-day deaths so far.

The previous high was 755 deaths, recorded a day earlier, on January 12. This means that 1,561 people died from the virus in the past two days alone. The new deaths mean that 35,140 Covid-19 related fatalities have been recorded since the outbreak of the coronavirus.

Of the new deaths, 235 were in KwaZulu-Natal, 211 in Gauteng, 151 were in the Western Cape, 150 were in the Eastern Cape, 24 in the Free State, 14 in both Mpumalanga and Limpopo and seven in the Northern Cape.

Health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize said that 18,555 new cases were confirmed in the past 24 hours. This means 1,278,303 cases have been recorded across SA. The new infections came from 71,681 tests, at a positivity rate of 25.88%

In total, 1,030,930 recoveries have been recorded, at a recovery rate of 80.6%.

TimesLIVE

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