Another record-breaking day in SA as 8,700 new cases confirmed

South Africa registered another record day of Covid-19 cases, with 8,735 people testing positive in the past 24 hours ending Thursday.

This brings to 168,061 the total number of cases across the country.

The Western Cape has the highest number of cases, at (65,841). It is followed by Gauteng (49,937), the Eastern Cape (30,603) and KwaZulu-Natal (11,669).

The health ministry also confirmed 95 Covid-19 related deaths in the past 24 hours, meaning that 2,844 people have now died of the respiratory illness in SA.

Of these deaths, 38 were recorded in Gauteng, 29 in the Western Cape, 16 in KwaZulu-Natal and twelve in the Eastern Cape.

The Western Cape has recorded the highest number of deaths to date (1,925), followed by the Eastern Cape (451), Gauteng (282) and KZN (152).

The ministry said that 81,999 people had recovered so far, a recovery rate of 48.8%.

The data is based on a total of 1,706,128 tests, of which 39,188 were confirmed in the past 24 hours.