SA records more than 500 Covid-19 deaths and 13,200 cases in 24 hours

There were 516 Covid-19 related deaths recorded across the country in the past 24 hours, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) said on Wednesday.

The fatalities pushed SA to another grim coronavirus milestone, with more than 80,000 now confirmed to have died from Covid-19 related complications. To date, 80,469 people have died, latest statistics show.

The NICD said that there were  13,251 new Covid-19 cases identified in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 2,722,202.

“The majority of new cases are from KwaZulu-Natal (27%, or 3,627 cases), followed by the Western Cape (25%, or 3,338 cases). The Eastern Cape accounted for 13% (1,783 cases), and Gauteng accounted for 10% (1,317 cases)," the NICD said.

No other provinces had more than 1,000 cases, with the Free State next-highest on 979 cases in the past day.

The NICD added that there was an increase of 606 hospital admissions in the past 24 hours, meaning that there are now 13,746 people in hospital for Covid-19 related treatment.

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