Health Minister Zweli Mkhize reported 73 more Covid-19 related deaths and 1 372 new cases on Thursday as the Department of Health gets ready to launch phase 2 of vaccination rollout.
On Thursday the cumulative number of Covid-19 cases for South Africa stood at 1 562 931 with 53 571 Covid-19 deaths recorded since March last year.
Thirteen of the 73 deaths reported on Thursday occurred in the Eastern Cape, 6 in the Free State, 16 in Gauteng, 20 in KwaZulu-Natal, 8 in Limpopo, 4 in Mpumalanga, 1 in the Northern Cape and 5 in the Western Cape.
The number of tests conducted to date is 10 259 664. Of these 43 550 tests were completed since the last report, Mkhize said.
Our cumulative recoveries today stand at 1 488 060, representing a recovery rate of 95%.
There are currently 21 300 active cases in the country.
On Friday morning, Mkhize is set to launch the Covid-19 Electronic Vaccination Data System for people who are 60 years and above.
The launch forms part of the preparations for the second phase of the vaccination programme.
* This is the official South African Covid-19 Vaccination Programme registration portal: https://vaccine.enroll.health.gov.za/#/
Vaccination rollout has been halted after the Department of Health decided to temporarily suspend the rollout of Johnson & Johnson's Covid-19 vaccine after US health authorities recommended pausing its use because of rare cases of blood clots in six people inoculated with it.
Mkhize told a briefing earlier this week that in South Africa there had not been reports of such clots after roughly 290 000 vaccinations with J&J's vaccine but “we cannot take the decision by the FDA (the U.S. Food and Drug Administration) lightly”.
Mkhize has said that South Africa is not considering terminating its contract with J&J for 31 million doses of its Covid-19 vaccine, but that government had secured an additional 10 million Covid-19 vaccine doses from Pfizer.
South Africa is currently on an lockdown alert level 1.
Related Video:
IOL and Reuters