Thirteen people with COVID-19 have died in South Australia, the highest number since the start of the pandemic.
Premier Steven Marshall said seven were recorded in the past 24 hours, with the remaining six added to the numbers after a reconciliation of deaths in aged care from the past two weeks.
"We don't want people to be alarmed about 13," Mr Marshall said.
"There were just seven reported in the last 24 hours and even some of those don't relate to deaths in the last 24 hours."
SA Health said the cases were a woman in her 50s, a woman in her 60s, a man and a woman in their 70s, a man and four women in their 80s, and two men and two women in their 90s.
Eleven deaths were reported last Thursday, the deadliest day before today, and 87 people with COVID-19 have died since the start of the pandemic — 79 of them in 2022.
Mr Marshall said SA Health had done a "full reconciliation" of deaths in aged care that resulted in today's high number.
"There is no requirement when people die to report through to the COVID team, so sometimes it comes through very late," he said.
"Sometimes it doesn't come through at all, so we've gone proactively out."
The state has recorded 2,401 new cases, an increase on yesterday.
The number of active cases continues to decline, and is currently at 26,574, the lowest since January 8.
"A perfect piece of evidence that we are certainly moving away from that peak in South Australia," the Premier said.
Fall in people in ICU and testing
A total of 288 people are in hospital — up one — with 26 in intensive care units — down nine — and four on ventilators, down one.
About 14,000 PCR tests were taken yesterday, down from the peak of about 26,000.
Mr Marshall urged people who had COVID-19 symptoms but who returned a negative result from a rapid antigen test to get a nasal swab.
"We say that if you get a false negative but you've got symptoms, you've got to go and have the PCR test," he said.
"But, personally, if I was deemed a close contact, I would be going and getting a PCR test because then I would know as soon as I had it."
