South Africa's official Covid-19 death toll breached 70 000 on Monday. The country has also recorded 243 new deaths, bringing the official death toll to 70 018.

According to a statement by the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), as of Monday, the country recorded 2 383 490 laboratory-confirmed cases.

"The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD)… reports that 5 683 new Covid-19 cases have been identified in South Africa, representing a 24.3% positivity rate," the statement read.

As of Monday, Gauteng recorded 844 746 confirmed cases of Covid-19, KwaZulu-Natal 386 217 and the Western Cape 383 425.

"The majority of new cases today (Monday) are from Gauteng (27%) followed by Western Cape (21%). KwaZulu-Natal accounted for 15%; Mpumalanga accounted for 10%; Eastern Cape accounted for 8%; Limpopo accounted for 6%; Free State and North West each accounted for 5%; and Northern Cape accounted for 3% of today's new cases," NICD spokesperson Sinenhlanhla Jimoh said.

Gauteng recorded 1 559 new cases on Monday, the Western Cape 1 192 and KwaZulu-Natal 832.

There was an increase of 479 hospital admissions in the last 24-hour reporting cycle. In total, 16 412 people were in both public and private hospitals for Covid-19.

As of Monday, South Africa conducted 14 587 196 tests, of which 23 349 were carried out in the last 24-hour reporting cycle.

The recovery rate is 91%, which translates to 2 169 452 recoveries.

According to the Department of Health, 6 613 704 vaccine doses were administered by Monday. Of those, 215 349 doses were administered in the last 24-hour cycle.

To date, 1 194 931 people have been fully vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine, while 1 242 236 have been vaccinated with the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine.