South Africa's COVID-19 recovery rate has reached 80 percent from 48 percent more than one month ago, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said Sunday.

The number of recoveries currently stood at 472,377, Mkhize said in his daily update.

As of Sunday, South Africa recorded a cumulative number of 587,345 confirmed COVID-19 cases, the minister said.

Of these cases, 3,692 cases were reported in the past 24 hours, Mkhize said.

"Regrettably we report a further 162 COVID-19 related deaths -- 70 from Eastern Cape, 27 from Gauteng, 21 from KwaZulu-Natal, six from Free State, 18 from North West and 20 from Western Cape. This brings the total COVID-19 related cumulative deaths to 11,839," said Mkhize.

The total number of tests conducted to date was 3,400,638, with 22,609 new tests conducted since the last report on Saturday, said Mkhize.

South Africa has seen the pandemic taper off in recent days.

Over the last three weeks, the number of new confirmed cases has dropped from a peak of over 12,000 a day to an average of around 5,000 a day over the past week.

The number of patients hospitalized has decreased from 10,000 at the beginning of the month to around 4,000, significantly reducing the pressure on the health facilities, official figures showed.

According to the country's risk-adjusted strategy announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa on Saturday, the country will further ease the lockdown restrictions from level three to level two, beginning from midnight on Monday.

Level two allows the country to remove nearly all of the restrictions on the resumption of economic activity across most industries.

Under level two, all restrictions on inter-provincial travel and the ban on sales of tobacco and alcohol will be lifted, with the re-opening of restaurants and bars.