With 42,073 tests conducted in the last 24 hours, some 3,221 new cases were recorded -- representing a 7.7% positivity rate, Mkhize said.
The figure means that the country has 1,605,252 confirmed cases and some 55,012 deaths since the outbreak of the pandemic in March 2020, he added.
While the new trajectory of confirmed cases was worrisome, the country had not yet crossed the national threshold for a new wave, the minister told South Africans.
“We want to assure South Africans that we have not yet hit the third wave. However, we are at risk. We, hence, need to be on heightened vigilance as a country,” Mkhize said.
Agreed the country’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), which saw the recent rapid increase in the percentage-testing positive for Covid-19 and the seven-day moving average of confirmed cases nationally as a cause for concern.