South Africa records two coronavirus deaths

South Africa on Friday recorded the first deaths resulting from Covid-19, the country’s Health Minister Dr. Zwelini Mkhize has announced.

Dr. Mkhize, in a press statement, said the two deaths occurred in the Western Cape; one at a public hospital and the other at a private facility.

South Africa authorities on Thursday midnight began to enforce a three-week lockdown over the coronavirus crisis as previously directed by President Cyril Ramaphosa.

“Immediate, swift and extraordinary action is required if we are to avoid human costs of this virus,” said Ramaphosa, adding that if the nation failed to act swiftly, it could face “a human catastrophe of enormous proportions.”

In the week since the country declared a state of national disaster, the number of confirmed cases has increased sixfold, Ramaphosa said, especially troubling in a country with a large immune-suppressed population of HIV and tuberculosis suffers.

South Africa on Thursday announced 927 cases of coronavirus – the highest in Africa – but Dr. Mkhize, in a new on Friday statement, revealed that the number had since surpassed the 1000 mark.