Coronavirus: UAE reports 1,584 Covid-19 cases, 1,546 recoveries, no deaths

The UAE Ministry of Health and Prevention on Monday reported 1,584 cases of the Covid-19 coronavirus, along with 1,546 recoveries and 0 deaths.

Total active cases stand at 17,283.

The new cases were detected through 162,046 additional tests.

The total number of cases in UAE on July 11 are 964,521, while total recoveries stand at 944,914. The death toll now stands at 2,324.

The quickly changing coronavirus has spawned yet another super contagious omicron mutant that’s worrying scientists as it gains ground in India and pops up in numerous other countries, including the United States.

Scientists say the variant – called BA.2.75 – may be able to spread rapidly and get around immunity from vaccines and previous infection. It’s unclear whether it could cause more serious disease than other omicron variants, including the globally prominent BA.5.

“It’s still really early on for us to draw too many conclusions,” said Matthew Binnicker, director of clinical virology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. “But it does look like, especially in India, the rates of transmission are showing kind of that exponential increase." Whether it will outcompete BA.5, he said, is yet to be determined.

Still, the fact that it has already been detected in many parts of the world even with lower levels of viral surveillance “is an early indication it is spreading,” said Shishi Luo, head of infectious diseases for Helix, a company that supplies viral sequencing information to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The latest mutant has been spotted in several distant states in India, and appears to be spreading faster than other variants there, said Lipi Thukral, a scientist at the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology in New Delhi. It’s also been detected in about 10 other countries, including Australia, Germany, the United Kingdom and Canada. Two cases were recently identified on the West Coast of the US, and Helix identified a third US case last week.

Meanwhile, Wimbledon champion Novak Djokovic is hoping US authorities change entry rules in time to allow him to compete at the US Open, even though he refuses to be vaccinated against coronavirus.

The Serbian top seed beat Nick Kyrgios in four sets on Sunday to win his seventh title at the All England Club and 21st Grand Slam crown overall -- leaving him just one behind Rafael Nadal.

Now he is targeting a fourth US Open crown after losing to Daniil Medvedev in the final last year.

But as things stand, his unvaccinated status means he will not be allowed into the United States to play in the tournament, which starts next month.

"I'm not vaccinated and I'm not planning to get vaccinated so the only good news I can have is them removing the mandated green vaccine card or whatever you call it to enter United States or exemption," said the 35-year-old.

"I don't think exemption is realistically possible.... I think it's just whether or not they remove this in time for me to get to the USA."