Coronavirus: UAE reports 246 Covid-19 cases, 398 recoveries, no deaths

The UAE Ministry of Health and Prevention on Saturday reported 246 cases of the Covid-19 coronavirus, along with 398 recoveries and no deaths.

Total active cases stand at 16,069.

The new cases were detected through 263,717 additional tests.

The total number of cases in UAE as on April 16 are 895,264, while total recoveries stand at 876,893. The death toll now stands at 2,302.

Shanghai reported a record number of symptomatic Covid-19 cases on Saturday and other areas across China imposed restrictions as the country kept up its “dynamic clearance” approach that aims to stamp out the highly transmissible Omicron Covid-19 variant.

The Zhengzhou Airport Economic Zone, a central Chinese manufacturing area that includes Apple Inc supplier Foxconn, announced a 14-day lockdown on Friday “to be adjusted according to the epidemic situation”.

In northwestern China, the city of Xian on Friday urged residents to avoid unnecessary trips outside their residential compounds and encouraged companies to have employees work from home or live at their workplace, following dozens of Covid-19 infections this month.

A Xian government official, responding to residents’ concerns over potential food shortages, said on Saturday that the announcement did not constitute a lockdown and that the city would not impose one.

The Vietnamese Health Ministry started issuing vaccine passports from April 15, the Vietnam News Agency (VNA) reported.

Vietnam's vaccine passport follows the standards of World Health Organisation (WHO) and the European Union (EU), which are followed by 62 nations.

The passport will be available on PC Covid-19 or Digital Health apps. Those who don't have the apps can get their passports by accessing the health ministry's portal and filling in the necessary information. They will then receive the passports by email.

The passport template was revealed by the health ministry in December last year, which has 11 fields of information such as name, date of birth, nationality, targeted disease, doses of vaccines received, date of vaccination, lot number of the vaccine batch, type of vaccine, vaccine product received, the vaccine manufacturer, and a code for the certification.

• Dubai
• Abu Dhabi