Health Minister, Zweli Mkhize, says the latest figure shows 188 deaths – of which 178 were confirmed in the Free State.

However, the minister urges the public not to panic and says these figures were collected over a couple of weeks.

“There has been a two-week delay in the reporting of Free State deaths as the province collated data from the various districts and verified this against Home Affairs Data. 

This is part of efforts to improve the quality of data by aligning information from facilities with Home Affairs statistics.

Data from postmortem swabs also had to be collated and verified,” reads the statement by Mkhize.

This brings the Covid-19 death toll to 16 586.

Furthermore, the country has recorded 903 new cases of Covid-19.

The total number of cumulative cases in the country now stands at 671 699.

Over 604 478 people have since recovered from the deadly pandemic, translating into a recovery rate of 90%.

Jacaranda FM