{"id":409415,"date":"2020-06-21T21:07:19","date_gmt":"2020-06-21T19:07:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=409415"},"modified":"2020-06-21T21:07:32","modified_gmt":"2020-06-21T19:07:32","slug":"97302-confirmed-coronavirus-cases-in-south-africa-as-deaths-climb-to-1930","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/409415\/97302-confirmed-coronavirus-cases-in-south-africa-as-deaths-climb-to-1930\/","title":{"rendered":"97,302 confirmed coronavirus cases in South Africa as deaths climb to 1,930"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Minister of health Dr Zweli Mkhize has announced that there are now 97,302 total cases of coronavirus in South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>This is an increase of 4,621 cases from 92,681 cases reported on Saturday, which saw a 24-hour record increase of 4,966 infections.<\/p>\n<p>The minister announced 53 new Covid-19 related deaths, taking the total up to 1,930, and a mortality rate of 1.98%, while recoveries increased to 51,608, which translates to a recovery rate of 53%.<\/p>\n<p>A total of 1.328 million tests have been conducted to date, with 34,452 over the past 24 hours, Dr Mkhize said.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">As of today, the cumulative number of confirmed <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/COVID19?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#COVID19<\/a> cases is 97 302, total number of deaths is 1930 and the total number of recoveries is 51 608. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/1cbPXLgVRr\">pic.twitter.com\/1cbPXLgVRr<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Dr Zweli Mkhize (@DrZweliMkhize) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DrZweliMkhize\/status\/1274779078634209285?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 21, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Globally, since 31 December 2019 and as of 21 June 2020, 8.95 million cases of Covid-19 have been reported, including in excess of 467,000 deaths, and 4.75 million recoveries.<\/p>\n<p>In Denmark, a study of 200 patients who had recovered from Covid-19 showed that about 20% of them tested positive for the coronavirus four weeks or more after they had been declared healthy, TV2 reported.<\/p>\n<p>Scientists from the Aarhus Universtity said the preliminary results could indicate that the virus has somehow been \u201cre-activated,\u201d but there\u2019s nothing to suggest the patients might be contagious, said Martin Tolstrup, the doctor behind the study.<\/p>\n<p>The scientists will now conduct new tests to determine whether the virus is still active in the patients\u2019 bodies, Bloomberg reported.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Fraud and money laundering<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Asset Forfeiture Unit (AFU) is investigating \u2018a glaring instance of fraud and money laundering\u2019, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/sunday-times\/news\/2020-06-21-covid-19-relief-npa-freezes-28-bank-accounts-as-huge-uif-fraud-comes-to-light\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Sunday Times<\/strong><\/a> reports, after a substantial amount of money was reported to have been paid into a single account.<\/p>\n<p>The paper reported that R5.7 million in UIF funds, which was intended for 200 workers impacted by the Covid-19 lockdown, was paid to a single person.<\/p>\n<p data-bind=\"text: $data\">\u201cIn an instant he went from having R12 in his account to more than R5 million,\u201d the Sunday paper said.<\/p>\n<p>The money was then quickly sent to friends and businesses over the course of five days.<\/p>\n<p>The AFU and the UIF are now investigating the matter, and 28 bank accounts have been frozen in connection with the fraudulent transaction.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are investigating whether there was complicity on the part of those working at the UIF. There is a suspicion that there may have been criminal activity between UIF officials and the end recipient of the money,\u201d said the NPA\u2019s Sipho Ngwema.<\/p>\n<p>The Sunday Time reported that while the person was registered to receive financial relief, it was not the \u2018windfall\u2019 that came his way.<\/p>\n<p>Mfopha said analysis of the person\u2019s transaction history showed that they disbursed R5.5 million in a series of payments to four people.\u00a0 They also spent R5,000 on cryptocurrency through the online trading platform Luno.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/409371\/uif-fraud-investigated-after-r5-7-million-paid-to-a-single-person-and-reportedly-funnelled-to-friends\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">UIF fraud investigated after R5.7 million paid to a single person and reportedly \u2018funnelled to friends\u2019<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Minister of Health Dr Zweli Mkhize has announced that there are now 97,302 total cases of coronavirus in South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":407893,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-409415","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\/409415","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=409415"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":409443,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409415\/revisions\/409443"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}