MEDIA STATEMENT: Health Department records COVID-19 deaths backlog

MEDIA STATEMENT

To: Editors & Journalists
Issued by: Department of Health
Date: Thursday,06 January 2022

Health Department records COVID-19 deaths backlog

Pretoria: The Department of Health has today recorded over 500 COVID-19 deaths due to going audit exercise conducted by provinces across the country to address a backlog of COVID-19 mortality and new cases.

Out of 551 deaths recorded today, only 45 have occurred in the past 48 hours.

Provinces like the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal account to 476 historical combined deaths in patients with documented SARS-Cov-2 infection.

The identification of these historic deaths is part of the process to align the provincial death line list with excess deaths.

The provincial COVID-19 dashboards reflect COVID-19 deaths by date of death rather than by date reported, and provides the most accurate trends in deaths in patients with documented SARS-CoV-2 infection.

For media enquiries, please contact:

Mr Foster Mohale
National Health Department
0724323792
Foster.mohale@health.gov.za

Mr Doctor Tshwale
Media Liaison Officer for Health Minister
063 657 8487