COVID-19 has one again robbed 188 families of their loved ones, Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize announced on Monday September 28.
Mkhize said the new deaths have increased the death toll to 16 586.
Mkhize attributed the huge death toll to a two weeks delay in the reporting of Free State deaths as the province collated data from 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 post mortem swabs also had to be collated and verified. This is in line with the recommendations of the Medical Research Council. The data is now up to date,” he said.
Mkhize also said of 188 deaths, 178 were recorded in the Free State, four in the Western Cape, two in Gauteng, one in KwaZulu-Natal, and three in the Eastern Cape.
Mkhize said the COVID-19 cases have now increased to 671 669 after 903 people contracted the disease. Of the 671 669 infected, 604 478 have recovered, shooting the recovery rate to 90 percent.
