Friday marks exactly a year since the first case of the novel coronavirus was first detected in South Africa on March 5, 2020.
The Health Minister, Zweli Mkhize, said this on Friday when sending his condolences to those who died from the virus.
“Exactly a year ago, I had the unenvious position of briefing the President that we had our first COVID-19,” said Mkhize.
The first patient to test positive for COVID-19 was a 38-year-old man who had travelled with his wife and 10 other people to Italy.
Since then a total of 50,462 people have succumbed to the deadly virus, with 96 deaths recorded over the last 24 hours.
Prof. Salim Abdool Karim, co-chair of the Ministerial Advisory Committee on COVID-19, said “this epidemic became real” when the first case was announced.
“Before that we were talking about it as something was happening elsewhere … but for the first time on the 5th of March that realisation hit,” he said on radio.
Karim admitted that the second wave which…
Source: Vanguard Newspaper
