Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize said in a statement on Friday that the cumulative number of Covid-19 cases identified in South Africa is 1 311 686.
This is an increase of 14 880 new cases in the last 24 hours.
The cumulative total of tests conducted to date is 7 498 780, with 65 209 new tests conducted since the last report, said Mkhize.
The minister added that a further 615 more COVID-19 related deaths were reported: Eastern Cape 100, Free State 41, Gauteng 99, KwaZulu-Natal 189, Mpumalanga 16, Northern Cape nine and Western Cape 161. This brings the COVID-19 death toll to 36 467.
The country’s recoveries stand at 1 062 690, recoveries with a recovery rate of 80.9%.
Meanwhile President Cyril Ramaphosa has allayed fears of many South Africans, saying the Treasury would have the money to fund the much-anticipated Covid-19 vaccine.
“There is no way we can say, when it comes to saving the lives of South Africans, that we don’t have the money. The money will be there. It has to be there to save the lives of South Africans. That one will be my bottom line,” said Ramaphosa.
A campaign launched by emerging civil society group the C19 People’s Coalition is calling for the support of South Africans to ensure that access to and allocation of the Covid-19 vaccine is free and fair.
In a statement on Friday, it announced it had launched the People’s Vaccine Campaign, which seeks to mobilise South Africans to help ensure equitable vaccine access and allocation.
“There is a danger that elites, powerful or dominant medical schemes, private health-care providers and other corporate interests will undermine access through growing disparities in our two-tiered health-care system and exclude the voices of workers who belong to state medical schemes, all health workers, front-line workers, working-class communities and civil society.”
Ramaphosa has also made a chilling admission that government has no money to support families left with no income as a result of the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions.
“We do not have the money, that’s the simple truth that has to be put out there, we are constrained from a financing point of view.”
But government has an obligation to both save lives and protect livelihoods.
Compiled by Lehlohonolo Lehana.