Another 44 people have died of Covid-19 in the past 24 hours, bringing the death toll to 952 for the past two months. “Although deaths in South Africa are increasing, our death rate of 2% is well below the global average of 6%,” said Dr. Health Minister Zweli Mkize said in a statement on Saturday.
Most new deaths have again been recorded in the Western Cape (25). Gauteng recorded seven deaths, and six people died in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal respectively. The age group that has recorded the most deaths so far is people between the ages of 60 and 70 (258 deaths). This represents 27% of the total number of deaths. Another quarter of deaths (25%) recorded were patients between the ages of 50 and 60 years.
A total of 2 539 cases of Covid-19 have been recorded since Thursday, which means 45 973 South Africans have already contracted the virus. So far, 24 258 people have recovered.
South Africa has also conducted 40 797 tests for Covid-19 since Thursday; most tests performed so far in one day. Most of these (25,356) were carried out in the public sector.
