nt deployed a team of health workers to the Stjwetla informal settlement in Alexandra, Johannesburg to test people for Covid-19. (Alet Pretorius/Gallo Images)
South Africa has recorded 1 716 new Covid-19 cases, bringing total to 32 683.
Another 40 deaths have also been recorded, taking the the total to 683, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said in his daily update on Sunday.
Mkhize said that 725 125 tests had been cumulatively processed and that 23 242 had been conducted since Saturday’s report.
Recoveries were sitting at 16 809, translating to a recovery rate of 51.4%.
The Western Cape, the country’s epicentre for the virus, was sitting at 21 382 positive cases, followed by Gauteng with 4 003, and Eastern Cape with 3927 cases.
In a statement on Sunday, Western Cape Premier Alan Winde said there 9 516 active cases in the province.
He said, as part of the province’s planning, it had constructed an 850-bed hospital at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, and that work was underway for a 300-bed facility in Brackengate.
Winde said that Doctors Without Borders in Khayelitsha, working in collaboration with the provincial health department, was close to completing a 60-bed facility which would provide an extension of the care offered at the Khayelitsha hospital.
The Sonstraal Hospital in the Cape Winelands would provide an additional 150 beds, he added.
“We have built 18 testing and triage sites across the province and secured millions of rands worth of PPEs. We have developed a strategy to target each of the hotspot areas in the province.
“This strategy is being implemented across government departments and in partnership with local government, law enforcement and the private sector,” Winde said.
