With 1,770 new Covid-19 cases confirmed in the past 24 hours, SA was on the verge of becoming just the 11th country to surpass 700,000 infections.

Health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize confirmed the new cases in a statement on Thursday night. SA now has 698,184 total infections.

Mkhize also confirmed that 158 Covid-19 related deaths had been recorded in the past 24 hours. Of these, eight were new deaths and the remaining 150 had only been validated in the 24 hours since the statistics were last released.

It was also confirmed on Wednesday that SA now had 628,301 confirmed recoveries, at a recovery rate of 90%.

The figures are based on 4,481,354 tests in total, of which 22,609 were in the last 24-hour cycle.