For a second day in succession, SA has identified more than 20,000 new coronavirus cases.

SA broke through the 20,000 cases per day barrier on Wednesday with 21,832 cases, which health minister Zweli Mkhize then described as a “grim milestone”.

On Thursday evening Mkhize said 20,999 new cases had been identified since the Wednesday report.

The country is in the midst of a second wave of infections, with the number of cases increasing dramatically from day to day. Harsher restrictions were imposed as part of SA’s lockdown at the end of December to curb the spread of Covid-19, but the numbers have merely continued to grow.

The new cases bring the cumulative number logged since the beginning of the pandemic in SA to 1,170,590.

Mkhize said a cumulative total of 6,967,478 tests have been completed, while 69,271 tests have been conducted since Wednesday’s report.

“Regrettably, we report 441 new Covid-19-related deaths: Eastern Cape 70, Free State 23, Gauteng 75, KwaZulu-Natal 132, Limpopo 11, Mpumalanga seven, Northern Cape four and Western Cape 119, which brings the total to 31,809 deaths,” Mkhize said.

Mkhize said that 938,216 of the cumulative cases account for recoveries, and that this represents a recovery rate of 80.1%. The recovery rate decreased from 80.8% the previous day.