SA coronavirus cases jump to 554 ahead of lockdown
The number of new COVID-19 cases in South African has risen to 554, a jump of 153 in less than 24 hours.
The announcement was made by Minister of Health Zweli Mkhize in Tshwane on Tuesday.
"I want to then say that 554 cases have been recorded overnight, as of 23:00 Monday,” he said.
"We have five confirmed conversions who have turned negative who were positive in the original list, most of our people are in a good condition many are not symptomatic," said Mkhize.
Although the country has not reported any deaths yet, Mkhize says two patients are in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in private hospitals.
"We have a record of two patients who are in ICU in private hospitals, and there is no death at this point," he adds.
The numbers are expected to increase over the next two weeks as the country heads into a three week lockdown from Friday.
“It is important to give you a sense of where things are. The rate at which are increasing we expect that the numbers will still increase,” Mkhize said.
“But once our whole program tightens up strongly, we should start seeing the change towards the end of the next two weeks.”