"A total of 634,996 tests have been conducted to date with 29,005 tests recorded since the last report," Mkhize said. 

"Regrettably, we report 28 more Covid-19 related deaths – this brings the total national deaths to 552. We wish to express our condolences to the loved ones of the deceased and thank the health care workers who treated these patients. The recoveries to date are 13,451 which translates to a recovery rate of 52 per cent."

Of the cases, the Western Cape had 65.1 per cent of the Covid-19 cases with 16,893 confirmed cases, Gauteng had 12.2 percent with 3167 confirmed cases, Eastern Cape had 11.7 per cent with 3047 cases, KwaZulu-Natal 8.4 per cent with 2186 cases, Free State had 0.9 per cent of the cases with 221 people testing positive, Limpopo has 141 confirmed cases, Mpumalanga has 106, North West has 128, and there are 48 confirmed cases in Northern Cape.  

Earlier, Mkhize told members of Parliament (MPs) that the modelling available to the health ministry puts South Africa's potential number of Covid-19 cases between 34,000 and 50,000 and forecasts a peak in infections around mid-July, in a pessimistic scenario. 

In a more optimistic scenario, novel coronavirus infections were likely to peak in mid-August.

Mkhize said the projections were "not cast in stone", and were constantly being updated with new, localised data as Covid-19 became more entrenched in the country, he said in response to questions in a virtual meeting of the National Assembly.

Early modelling was particularly problematic, Mkhize said, as it relied on the progression of the coronavirus in other nations, in the absence of data within South Africa. 

It has been widely reported that before implementing a hard lockdown in late March, the government was confronted with modelling suggesting more than 350,000 people could succumb to the virus.

"They took models from all over the world but did not have direct data relating to what is happening in South Africa. The models will improve as time goes by and more data comes in from South Africa," he said.

He said it was now a question of seeking to know how many people may be asymptomatic carriers of the virus, as this would give a clear picture as to what percentage of the population was being infected. However, this was constrained by a lack of testing material.

He said the ministry was currently doing everything it could to procure more diagnostic material amid a worldwide shortage. But Mkhize reiterated that medical officials could increasingly rely on clinical diagnostics to determine whether somebody was infected and needed to be confined.

African News Agency