753 more Covid-19 deaths recorded in 24 hours, along with 7,070 infections

More than 750 Covid-19 related deaths were recorded across South Africa in a 24-hour period for just the fourth time.

The high number announced on Thursday night was driven by the 261 deaths recorded in KwaZulu-Natal and the 219 recorded in Limpopo since the release of Wednesday's figures — with the latter due to “audits of the deaths in hospitals and updating the [death] figures”, according to the health ministry.

In total 753 deaths were recorded in the past 24 hours. Apart from KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo, 102 deaths were recorded in the Western Cape, 75 in Gauteng, 50 in the North West, 17 in the Free State, 16 in Mpumalanga, and seven in the Northern Cape.

The latest deaths take the number Covid-19 related fatalities across SA to 42,550.

Health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize announced that 7,070 new cases were recorded in the past 24 hours, meaning that 1,430,648 cumulative infections have now been recorded.

The new cases come from 49,065 tests — a positivity rate of 14.4%.

To date, 1,263,476 recoveries have been recorded, at a recovery rate of 88.3%.

TimesLIVE