Gauteng set to become SA epicentre of Covid-19 – Mkhize

With Gauteng’s overall tally of confirmed Covid-19 cases set to top the 40 000 mark and more than 3000 new infections now being reported daily, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize has warned that “Gauteng is expected to emerge as the country’s Covid-19 epicentre within the coming days”.

Over the past 10 days South Africa’s economic hub and most populous province has reported a surge in new coronavirus infections, which has seen it overtake the Western Cape in terms of “active” Covid-19 cases.

In his daily virus update on Monday, Mkhize revealed that Gauteng has 39 841 confirmed Covid-19 cases. Of this total, 30 103 are currently active cases while there are 9 738 recoveries in the province.

Gauteng is expected to emerge as the country’s #COVID19 epicentre within the coming days. Here are some of the reasons why. pic.twitter.com/c0I3WVTVgN

— Dr Zweli Mkhize (@DrZweliMkhize) June 29, 2020

The Western Cape’s confirmed cases stands at 61 375. However, with the large majority (42 636) of cases now regarded as recoveries, the number of active Covid-19 cases in the province stands at 18 739. The Western Cape, however, is still home to the highest number of virus-related deaths, at 1 807 of South Africa’s overall 2 529 fatalities as of Monday.

Mkhize said while the cumulative number of confirmed Covid-19 cases countrywide is 144 264, around 48.9% or 70 614 of these were now recoveries. He did not go into detail on how many of the currently active cases represented patients in hospital or in ICU beds.