Covid-19 update: SA breaches the 19,000 death mark, cases at 716,759

South Africa has a total of 716,759 positive cases of Covid-19 as of Monday, 26 October, the health department has announced.

40 new deaths have also been recorded: 8 from Eastern Cape, 4 from Gauging, 1 from KwaZulu-Natal, 4 from Mpumalanga, 16 from North West and 7 from Western Cape.

This brings the total number of Covid-19 deaths to 19, 008.

Of the 40 deaths, 10 were reported to have occurred in the past 24-48 hours.

“We extend our condolences to the loved ones of the departed and thank the healthcare workers who treated the deceased patients,” said the health department.

Coronavirus toll 

The novel coronavirus has killed at least 1,155,301 people since the outbreak emerged in China last December, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1100 GMT on Monday.

At least 43,080,500 cases of coronavirus have been registered. Of these, at least 29,194,100 are now considered recovered.

The tallies, using data collected by AFP from national authorities and information from the World Health Organization (WHO), probably reflect only a fraction of the actual number of infections.

Many countries are testing only symptomatic or the most serious cases.

On Sunday, 4,313 new deaths and 408,969 new cases were recorded worldwide. Based on latest reports, the countries with the most new deaths were India with 480 new deaths, followed by the United States with 461 and Iran with 337.

The United States is the worst-affected country with 225,239 deaths from 8,636,995 cases. At least 3,422,878 people have been declared recovered.

After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 157,134 deaths from 5,394,128 cases, India with 119,014 deaths from 7,909,959 cases, Mexico with 88,924 deaths from 891,160 cases, and the United Kingdom with 44,896 deaths from 873,800 cases.

The country with the highest number of deaths compared to its population is Peru with 104 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Belgium with 93, Spain 74, Bolivia 74.

China — excluding Hong Kong and Macau — has to date declared 85,810 cases, including 4,634 deaths and 80,911 recoveries.

Latin America and the Caribbean overall has 391,941 deaths from 10,943,182 cases, Europe 262,837 deaths from 8,876,668 infections, and the United States and Canada 235,185 deaths from 8,853,039 cases.

Asia has reported 166,317 deaths from 10,212,958 cases, the Middle East 56,752 deaths from 2,441,985 cases, Africa 41,257 deaths from 1,718,636 cases, and Oceania 1,012 deaths from 34,038 cases.

As a result of corrections by national authorities or late publication of data, the figures updated over the past 24 hours may not correspond exactly to the previous day’s tallies.

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