SA drops to eighth in number of Covid-19 infections globally

With SA's Covid-19 recovery rate remaining stable at more than 88%, the country continues to drop on Worldometers' list of countries with the most Covid-19 infections.

According to Worldometers, SA has dropped four spots to eighth on the list.

Worldometers is a data source that tracks real-time statistics on several topics, including Covid-19. The numbers vary daily as updates continue to stream in.

To date, SA has 643,431 confirmed Covid-19 cases and 15,168 deaths.

According to the health ministry, 1,990 new infections were reported on Wednesday. This is a drop from more than 11,000 positive cases that were reported daily in the past few months.

The recovery rate now stands at 88.7%, meaning that 569,935 people have so far recovered. It is well above the global average of 64.5%.

At the weekend, health minister Zweli Mkhize said if people continue to adhere to precautionary measures to avoid a resurgence in Covid-19 infections, the country will soon reduce the restrictions.

“The sooner we can get to level 1 the better, the sooner we have a normal economy the better, it is better for the country. We are hoping South Africans will understand that to get there, we have to make sure we are just as cautious in level 2 so that there is no resurgence,” said Mkhize.

Mkhize told Radio Islam on Tuesday that SA had passed the surge and that the worst was over.

“We can safely say we are over the surge. June, July and August were the worst months, as predicted by our models. However, we found that not as many people as the model suggested would be affected,” he said.

Hospitalisation numbers have reduced, and the number of people in intensive care is reducing, said Mkhize. “We must be very optimistic but still very cautious. We are not seeing the end of the disease yet,” he said.

However, he also cautioned that it is too early to celebrate, saying that it could lead to a flare-up in cases.