25 May 2020 – South Africa has 22 583 confirmed Covid-19 cases and 429 people have died from the coronavirus since the country’s first case was confirmed on March 5, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced on Sunday (24 May 2020).
This means that 22 new deaths have been recorded over the past 24 hours. The number of new cases reported in the same period is 1 240.
Ramaphosa said that there are currently around 11 0000 active coronavirus cases in the country.
He stressed the the decision to place the country under stringent level 5 lockdown on March 23 was instrumental in curbing the spead of the virus.
The number of Covid-19 tests conducted to date is over 580 000, well over the number of tests conducted in other African countries, Ramaphosa said.
“Around 20 000 beds have been repurposed for coronavirus patients,” the president said.
He warned that the number of infections in the country is rising steadily, in line with projections, and would continue to do so for some time.
“One third of the cumulative confirmed cases were recorded in the last week alone and we should expect that these numbers will rise,” Ramaphosa said
(source: IOL)