KwaZulu-Natal continues to be SA's Covid-19 epicentre, with 3,610 of the country's 12,771 new cases recorded in the province in the past 24 hours.

The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) said on Thursday that the newly identified cases took the total number of infections to 2,734,973 since the outbreak of the virus in March last year.

There were also, the NICD said, 357 new Covid-19 related deaths reported in the past 24 hours, bringing total fatalities to 80,826 to date.

Behind KZN in terms of new cases was the Western Cape (3,038), the Eastern Cape (1,657) and Gauteng (1,149). No other province recorded more than 1,000 new cases in the past 24 hours.

The NICD also reported that there were 495 new hospital admissions in the past 24 hours, meaning that 13,646 people are now being treated in the country's hospitals.

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