Coronavirus: UAE reports 390 Covid-19 cases, 800 recoveries, no deaths

The UAE Ministry of Health and Prevention on Thursday reported 390 cases of the Covid-19 coronavirus, along with 800 recoveries and no deaths.

Total active cases stand at 24,955.

The total number of cases in UAE as on March 24 are 889,105, while total recoveries stand at 861,848. The death toll now stands at 2,302.

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Singapore will lift restrictions for all vaccinated travellers from next week, with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Thursday hailing it as a “major milestone” in the aviation hub’s efforts to live with Covid-19.

The city-state is the latest Asian country to ease travel restrictions in a region that has generally been more reluctant to lift barriers than Europe and North America.

New Zealand will also relax its strict Covid-19 rules this week because case numbers have peaked and the population has high levels of immunity, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said.

Ardern said limits on outdoor crowd numbers would be scrapped late Friday, allowing sporting events and concerts to take place with unrestricted crowds.

She said vaccine passes and scanning codes would no longer be compulsory from April 4 and most vaccine mandates — requiring employees to be immunised or face the sack — would be dropped.

However, with coronavirus cases rising in parts of Europe and Asia, scientists worry that an extra-contagious version of the Omicron variant may soon push cases up in the United States too.

Experts are also keeping their eyes on another mutant: a rare delta-Omicron hybrid that they say doesn't pose much of a threat right now but shows how wily the coronavirus can be.

The US will likely see an uptick in cases caused by the Omicron descendant BA.2 starting in the next few weeks, according to Dr. Eric Topol, head of Scripps Research Translational Institute.

• Dubai