{"id":417707,"date":"2020-07-19T21:17:12","date_gmt":"2020-07-19T19:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=417707"},"modified":"2020-07-20T08:26:24","modified_gmt":"2020-07-20T06:26:24","slug":"364328-confirmed-coronavirus-cases-in-south-africa-as-deaths-climb-to-5033","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/417707\/364328-confirmed-coronavirus-cases-in-south-africa-as-deaths-climb-to-5033\/","title":{"rendered":"364,328 confirmed coronavirus cases in South Africa as deaths climb to 5,033"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize has announced that there are now a total of 364,328 cases of coronavirus in South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>This is an increase of 13,449 cases from the 350,879 infections reported on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>The minister announced 85 new Covid-19 related deaths, taking the total to 5,033 casualties, following a 24-hour high of 216 casualties on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>He pointed to 191,059 recoveries to date.<\/p>\n<p>A total of 2.47 million tests have been conducted, with 49,006 tests conducted over the past 24 hours, Dr Mkhize said.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">As of today, a cumulative total of 364 328 confirmed COVID-19 cases in South Africa have been recorded. The total number of tests conducted to date is 2 471 747 with 49 006 new tests conducted since the last report <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/COVID19?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#COVID19<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Fy1bN03UjY\">pic.twitter.com\/Fy1bN03UjY<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Department of Health (@HealthZA) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/HealthZA\/status\/1284928255267569672?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 19, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Since 31 December 2019 and as of 19 July 2020, approximately 14.5 million cases of Covid-19 have been reported, including approximately 605,000 deaths, and around 8.65 million recoveries.<\/p>\n<p>Of approximately 5.2 million infected people, around 60,095 (1%) are serious, or critical.<\/p>\n<p>Six distinct types of coronavirus have been identified by scientists, the Telegraph said.<\/p>\n<p>Scientists used artificial intelligence software to identify \u201cclusters\u201d of symptoms and ranked them in order of severity. Headache and loss of smell are common to all six groupings, Bloomberg reported.<\/p>\n<p>Scientists at King\u2019s College London found that patients with the sixth type of Covid-19 are nearly 10 times more likely to end up needing breathing support than patients in the first group.<\/p>\n<p>They used data from 1,600 users of its symptom tracker app in the UK and US who had confirmed cases. The resulting algorithm was then tested on a further 1,000 users in those countries as well as Sweden.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Schools in South Africa<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>South Africa\u2019s five major teacher unions have called for the immediate closure of all schools as coronavirus cases continue to surge.<\/p>\n<p>This, they said, must apply to all grades until the end of August, which is when Covid-19 infections are expected to peak, the <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/sunday-times\/news\/2020-07-19-teachers-plead-for-new-timetable-as-covid-19-infections-spike\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sunday Times<\/a><\/strong> reported.<\/p>\n<p>The unions said in a proposal document, that matric students should return on 17 August and that these students should be assisted in various ways while learning from home.<\/p>\n<p>Other grades should only return at the end of August, subject to a review based on the development of the virus, the unions said.<\/p>\n<p>Basic Education minister Angie Motshekga will now discuss these proposals with the cabinet, the paper reports.<\/p>\n<p>Education spokesperson Elijah Mhlanga confirmed to the Sunday Times that a meeting of the Council of Education Ministers took place on Saturday (18 July). He said the the ministers\u2019 engagement will be \u2018announced in due course\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe wish to reiterate that it is the cabinet that will make the decision on whether schools close or remain open,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Minister Motshekga said this week that around 16,000 teachers have comorbidities, putting them at greater risk should they contract Covid-19.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile several teachers have already died from the virus, while hundreds of schools have been forced to close since 8 June, when most Grade 7 and 12 pupils returned to their classrooms.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/417657\/mkhize-makes-urgent-and-important-plea-to-all-south-africans\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mkhize makes \u2018urgent and important\u2019 plea to all South Africans<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize has announced that there are now a total of 364,328 cases of coronavirus in South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":417561,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-417707","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\/417707","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=417707"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":417825,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417707\/revisions\/417825"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}