Coronavirus: UAE reports 373 Covid-19 cases, 347 recoveries, no deaths

The UAE Ministry of Health and Prevention on Wednesday reported 373 cases of the Covid-19 coronavirus, along with 347 recoveries and no deaths.

Total active cases stand at 13,930.

The new cases were detected through 238,458 additional tests.

The total number of cases in UAE as on May 25 are 905,841, while total recoveries stand at 889,609. The death toll now stands at 2,302.

Over 160.9 million PCR tests have been conducted in the country so far.

Researchers at the UAE University have developed a new signal processing method to detect Covid-19 in a patient sample in just two minutes. The device achieves this by using light signals and electrical responses of the viral nucleocapsid protein and antibody interactions.

Dr. Mahmoud Al Ahmad - Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the UAE University said: “Over the past two years, the coronavirus pandemic has caused a fundamental shift in the way the world works, and we have witnessed huge loss of life and the deterioration of health care in light of the challenges in detecting, preventing and managing infectious diseases.”

He added: "The current situation requires researchers and scientists to collaborate to devise solutions to mitigate these challenges and to use both medicine and technology to address issues related to diagnosis and identification of infected patients, monitoring and control of disease spread."

Meanwhile, Taiwan reported less than 15,000 locally transmitted cases for all of 2021. Now, it’s registering around 80,000 cases a day - a startling reversal after the effectiveness of its long-standing zero-Covid policy won it international praise.

“We could no longer achieve the goal of zero Covid because it was too contagious,” former vice president Chen Chien-jen, an epidemiologist, said in a video released by the ruling Democratic Progressive Party on Sunday. Most cases in Taiwan are of the less severe Omicron variant, with more than 99.7 per cent of cases exhibiting mild or no symptoms, he said.

“This is a crisis but also an opportunity, allowing us to walk out of the shadow of Covid-19 quickly,” Chen said.

Despite a peak of infection forecast for this week, the government is determined to end a policy that included largely closing its borders. It has relaxed restrictions, such as shortening mandatory quarantines, in what it calls the “new Taiwan model” - gradually living with the virus and avoiding shutting down the economy.

• Dubai
• Abu Dhabi