It comes just days after authorities confirmed that a new, faster-spreading, coronavirus variant had been detected. Some hospitals and medical centres have reported a huge rise in admissions, putting a heavy strain on resources.

President Cyril Ramaphosa is widely expected to announce tougher restrictions to prevent the virus from spreading further.

The latest milestone was announced on Sunday by South Africa's Health Minister, Zweli Mkhize. The country has now confirmed 1,004,413 Covid-19 infections and 26,735 deaths since the outbreak began in March.

Last week, South Africa recorded a daily average of 11,700 new infections - a rise of 39% on the previous week - and from Wednesday to Friday, the daily number of new cases was above 14,000.

A new coronavirus variant - known as 501.V2 - is believed to be driving the surge in infections. It was identified by a network of South African scientists in the Eastern Cape province and then rapidly spread to other parts of the country.

Back at home, the ongoing trend of contraction of India’s total active cases continues. The active caseload of the country stands at 2,77,301 yesterday. The share of Active Cases in the total Positive Cases has further shrunk to 2.72%. A net decline of 1,389 cases from the total active caseload was registered in the last 24 hours.

Daily recoveries have outnumbered the daily new cases since more than a month now. In the last 24 hours, 20,021 persons were found to be COVID positive in the country. During the same period, 21,131 new recoveries were registered ensuring drop in the Active Caseload.

Total Recoveries are nearing 98 lakhs (97,82,669). The Recovery Rate has also increased to 95.83%. The gap between recoveries and active cases is consistently widening and has crossed 95 lakh (95,05,368).

When compared globally, India's Cases per million population is amongst the lowest in the world (7,397). The Global average is 10,149. Countries such as Russia, UK, Italy, Brazil, France and USA have much higher cases per million population.

72.99% of the new recovered cases are observed to be concentrated in 10 States/UTs. Kerala has reported the maximum number of single day recoveries with 3,463 newly recovered cases. 2,124 people recovered in Maharashtra in the past 24 hours followed by 1,740 in West Bengal.

Story Input: www.bbc.com