South Africa has recorded its three most deadly Covid-19 days on consecutive days this week, as the number of confirmed fatalities climbed on Thursday to 35,852.
On Thursday, health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize announced that 712 Covid-19 related fatalities had been recorded in the past 24 hours. This comes after 806 deaths were announced on Wednesday, and 755 deaths on Tuesday. This means that 2,273 people had been confirmed to have died from Covid-19 related illnesses in just three days.
Since the beginning of the year, the number of recorded deaths has climbed from 28,887 on January 1 to Thursday's figure of 35,852 - an increase of 6,965 deaths. The country has recorded more than 500 deaths in a 24-hour period six times since the outbreak of the pandemic in March 2020, with five of them coming since January 5.
Mkhize said that of the 712 deaths recorded on Thursday, 232 were in KwaZulu-Natal, 162 were in the Western Cape, 114 were in Gauteng, 97 in the Eastern Cape, 50 in the North West, 21 were in the Free State, 15 in the Northern Cape, 11 in Limpopo and 10 were in Mpumalanga.
Also on Thursday, Mkhize announced that 18,503 new Covid-19 infections had been recorded in the past 24 hours, taking the national total of cases to 1,296,806. The new infections came from 74,830 tests, at a positivity rate of 24.7%.
Currently, 211,214 of those cases are considered active across SA, with KZN (67,583 cases) Gauteng (49,162 cases) and the Western Cape (40,933 cases) accounting for 74.5% of them.
Mkhize also reported that 1,049,740 recoveries had been recorded, representing a recovery rate of 80.9%.
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