{"id":401025,"date":"2020-05-23T21:24:44","date_gmt":"2020-05-23T19:24:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=401025"},"modified":"2020-05-23T21:37:31","modified_gmt":"2020-05-23T19:37:31","slug":"21343-confirmed-coronavirus-cases-in-south-africa-as-deaths-rise-to-407","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/401025\/21343-confirmed-coronavirus-cases-in-south-africa-as-deaths-rise-to-407\/","title":{"rendered":"21,343 confirmed coronavirus cases in South Africa as deaths rise to 407"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize has announced that there are now 21,343 confirmed cases of coronavirus in South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>This is an increase of 1,218 cases from the 20,125 cases reported on Friday, and is the highest reported 24-hour increase in infections to date.<\/p>\n<p>Dr Mkhize said on Saturday (23 May), that the total number of deaths has now reached 407 \u2013 an increase of 10 deaths from 397 reported before.<\/p>\n<p>The minister said that 564,370 tests have been conducted, with 21,338 tests in the past 24-hour cycle.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">As of May 23, the total amount of confirmed <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/COVID19?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#COVID19<\/a> cases in SA is 21,343. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/tsIhC6YayR\">pic.twitter.com\/tsIhC6YayR<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Department of Health: COVID-19 (@COVID_19_ZA) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/COVID_19_ZA\/status\/1264274843668828160?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 23, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>President Cyril Ramaphosa will address the nation at 19h00 on Sunday 24 May 2020, on developments in South Africa\u2019s risk-adjusted strategy to manage the spread of Covid-19.<\/p>\n<p>Globally, coronavirus cases topped 5.3 million globally on Saturday, while deaths have exceeded 340,000, with nearly 2.2 million recoveries.<\/p>\n<p>Japan\u2019s state of emergency is nearing its end with new cases of the coronavirus dwindling to mere dozens. It got there despite largely ignoring the default playbook, Bloomberg reported.<\/p>\n<p>No restrictions were placed on residents\u2019 movements, and businesses from restaurants to hairdressers stayed open.<\/p>\n<p>The country doesn\u2019t have a centre for disease control. And even as nations were exhorted to \u201ctest, test, test,\u201d Japan has tested just 0.2% of its population &#8211; one of the lowest rates among developed countries.<\/p>\n<p>Yet the curve has been flattened, with deaths well below 1,000, by far the fewest among the Group of Seven developed nations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJust by looking at death numbers, you can say Japan was successful,\u201d said Mikihito Tanaka, a professor at Waseda University specializing in science communication, and a member of a public advisory group of experts on the virus. \u201cBut even experts don\u2019t know the reason.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Experts are credited with creating an easy-to-understand message of avoiding what are called the \u201cThree C\u2019s\u201d &#8211; closed spaces, crowded spaces and close-contact settings &#8211; rather than keeping away from others entirely, Bloomberg said.<\/p>\n<p>Infectious disease experts also pointed to other determinants including Japanese people\u2019s health consciousness as possibly the most important factor.<\/p>\n<p>The possibility that the virus strain spreading in Japan may have been different, and less dangerous, to that faced by other nations, has also been raised.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Economic fallout in South Africa<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>S&amp;P Global Ratings has warned that the Covid-19 epidemic will weigh heavily on South Africa\u2019s GDP growth, and expects the country\u2019s economy to shrink by 4.5% in 2020.<\/p>\n<p>In April, S&amp;P downgraded South Africa\u2019s credit rating further into non-investment-grade territory, citing the same reason \u2013 fallout from the coronavirus.<\/p>\n<p>South Africa is caught in the grip of a strict lockdown which has been in place for nearly nine weeks, leaving many businesses and individuals without an income.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCovid-19 will weigh heavily on GDP growth given the strict domestic lockdown that has shut down much of the economy, the markedly weaker external demand outlook, and tighter credit conditions,\u201d S&amp;P said in a research note.<\/p>\n<p>South Africa fell into a recession even before the first case of the coronavirus was detected in the country, and GDP projections deteriorated after the government imposed lockdown on March 27.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/400961\/new-return-plans-for-south-african-university-students\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">New return plans for South African university students<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize has announced that there are now 21,343 confirmed cases of coronavirus in South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":390209,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-401025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401025"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401025\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":401061,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401025\/revisions\/401061"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}