Health minister Zweli Mkhize has announced that South Africa now has 87,715 confirmed cases of coronavirus.
This is up by 3,825 cases from the 83,890 infections on Thursday.
Case Data:
| Province | Total cases for 19 June 2020 | Percentage total |
| Eastern Cape | 13506 | 15,4 |
| Free State | 658 | 0,8 |
| Gauteng | 17261 | 19,7 |
| KwaZulu-Natal | 4548 | 5,2 |
| Limpopo | 503 | 0,6 |
| Mpumalanga | 505 | 0,6 |
| North West | 1758 | 2,0 |
| Northern Cape | 218 | 0,2 |
| Western Cape | 48706 | 55,5 |
| Unknown | 52 | 0,1 |
| Total | 87715 | 100,0 |
The minister also announced 94 new Covid-19 related deaths, taking the total up to 1,831, and a mortality rate of 2.1%.
Gender Distribution Deaths:
| Male (%) | Female (%) | Unknown | Total |
| 951 (51,9%) | 878 (48%) | 2 (0,1) | 1831 |
The number of recoveries is 47 825, which translates to a recovery rate of 54,5%.
The provincial breakdown is as follows:
| Province | Deaths | Recoveries |
| Eastern Cape | 257 | 6331 |
| Free State | 9 | 235 |
| Gauteng | 114 | 4001 |
| KwaZulu Natal | 80 | 2527 |
| Limpopo | 4 | 236 |
| Mpumalanga | 1 | 156 |
| North West | 5 | 175 |
| Northern Cape | 1 | 97 |
| Western Cape | 1360 | 34067 |
| Total | 1831 | 47825 |
1 260 434 tests have been completed in total of which 32 336 new tests are reported.
On 16 June, Minister of Health,Zweli Mkhize conveyed excitement, as a Department, around the breakthrough research of the RECOVERY trial from Oxford University in Britain.
In this trial, they studied the therapeutic effects of dexamethasone, an anti-inflammatory medicine well known in the clinical setting to manage inflammatory processes that are seen in clinical setting such as asthma, allergic reactions, auto-immune disease and brain swelling (oedema).
Dexamethasone was found to reduce mortality by one third in patients who required ventilatory support and by one fifth in patients who required non invasive supplementary oxygen.
This is a significant breakthrough in evidence based management of COVID-19. The study results are compelling because it was a randomized study that was able to recruit large numbers of participants (6425).
There is no other medicine that has shown this level of efficacy against COVID-19 to date.
The study showed no benefit for those patients who did not require oxygen supplementation.
Since this announcement,the department have looked into their own context and found that they are indeed in a favourable position.
The health care workers are very familiar with dexamethasone, having used it for decades as a registered medicine in South Africa.
Compiled by Lehlohonolo Lehana.