South Africa passed yet another grim Covid-19 milestone on Tuesday, as more than 16,000 deaths have now been confirmed linked to the respiratory illness.

Health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize said 126 deaths had been recorded in the past 24 hours – 54 in KwaZulu-Natal, 45 in Gauteng, 17 in the Western Cape and five each in the Eastern Cape and the North West.

“This brings the total number of Covid-19 related deaths to 16,118,” said Mkhize.

SA passed the 15,000-death mark on September 7, meaning that it took 15 days for the most recent 1,000 fatalities. It took eight days between the 14,000th death (recorded on August 30) and the 15,000th.

Mkhize also confirmed 1,346 new cases of the virus since Monday. There are now 663,282 recorded infections countrywide.

There have also been 592,904 recorded recoveries – a recovery rate of 89.4%.

The figures are based on 4,064,117 tests to date, of which 16,394 were done in the past 24-hour cycle.

Source: TimesLIVE