South Africa now has world's fifth most Covid-19 cases

The number of new Covid-19 infections tracked in SA over the past 24 hours is 13,285. This means South Africa now has the fifth highest number of cases worldwide, according to statistics on Worldometers.

This brings the cumulative number of infections to 350,879, the health department said on Saturday night, compared with the 337,594 confirmed cases recorded a day ago.

Only Russia, India, Brazil and the USA have more coronavirus cases.

There have been 144 Covid-19 related deaths over the past 24 hours, bringing the cumulative total to 4,948.

There have been 182,230 recoveries across the country.

The total number of tests conducted to date is 2,422,741 with 49,688 new tests conducted since the last report on Friday.

In a separate statement, the government reiterated its call to South Africans to minimise the spread of the virus by taking preventive measures: maintaining a physical distance of 1.5 metres, regularly washing hands with soap and water or an alcohol-based sanitiser, and wearing a mask when in public.

The health ministry on Friday said one of the critical aspects of combating Covid-19 is the ability to detect positive cases early, track and trace their contacts, and refer them for appropriate management, whether it is immediate testing, isolation or quarantine.

It hailed the success of its electronic track and tracing system for Covid-19 patients and their contacts via cellphones.

“We are pleased to announce that since the system went live in June it has yielded some positive results. Between June 28 and July 15, it has dispatched 674,380 SMSs to users nationwide and relayed 326,522 test results.”