On 5 March 2020, health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize briefed president Cyril Ramaphosa that South Africa had reported its first Covid-19 case.<\/p>\n
A year later, and the official statistics show that 1,517,666 total cases have been reported in the country, with 50,462 confirmed deaths due to the coronavirus.<\/p>\n
In the past month, the country has also started its vaccination efforts, with 92,029 vaccines administered to date.<\/p>\n
However, data<\/a> <\/strong>from the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) shows that the number of excess deaths<\/strong> in the country over the last year is much higher.<\/p>\n The SAMRC’s data shows that there were more than 145,000 excess deaths<\/strong> from natural causes of persons 1+ years of age by the end of 27 Feb 2021.<\/p>\n The researchers estimate that between 85% -95% of these deaths are directly attributable to the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n Per capita excess death rates have been calculated for the provinces to scale the cumulative deaths for the population size of each province.<\/p>\n By 27 February 2021, the national excess death rate was 244 per 100,000 population.<\/p>\n Exactly a year ago I had the unenvious position of briefing the President that we had our first #COVID19<\/a> case. @MorningLiveSABC<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Dr Zweli Mkhize (@DrZweliMkhize) March 5, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n