Africa's most industrialized nation has 298,292 cases at the last count, and with positive tests now increasing at a rate of more than 10,000 a day, it is all but certain to vault over the 300,000 mark when the ministry releases nightly figures on Wednesday.
At the end of March, President Cyril Ramaphosa took aggressive, early action, shutting shops, ordering people to stay at home and sending the army on to the streets to enforce it - when South Africa had only 400 cases and no recorded deaths.
The government later eased many curbs over fears for its struggling economy.
But with the world's fourth-largest daily increase in coronavirus cases in a country of 58 million people, an exasperated Ramaphosa on Sunday reimposed an alcohol ban and a night curfew.