There were 555 new Covid-19 deaths recorded in the past 24 hours, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases said on Tuesday.

In the same period, there were 8,988 new infections recorded, at a positivity rate of 19.8%.

This means that there have been 72,992 fatalities and 2,470,746 cases recorded across SA to date.

Of the new cases, most were in Gauteng (2,267), followed by the Western Cape (2,233) and KwaZulu-Natal (1,697).

The NICD said there had also been an increase of 636 hospital admissions in the past 24 hours, meaning that 15,788 people are being treated for coronavirus-related illnesses in hospital.

TimesLIVE