Coronavirus: UAE reports 421 Covid-19 cases, 587 recoveries, no deaths

The UAE Ministry of Health and Prevention on Saturday reported 421 cases of the Covid-19 coronavirus, along with 587 recoveries and no deaths.

Total active cases stand at 18,343.

The new cases were detected through 211,386 additional tests.

The total number of cases in UAE as on August 20 are 1,016,745, while total recoveries stand at 996,061. The death toll now stands at 2,341.

Around 21 million people in the Chinese city of Chengdu effectively went into lockdown on Thursday as authorities raced to snuff out a new Covid-19 outbreak.

China is the last major economy wedded to a zero-Covid policy, stamping out virus flare-ups with snap shutdowns, mass testing and lengthy quarantines.

Chengdu, in the southwest, became the latest city to announce a shutdown, saying in an official notice that residents must "stay home in principle" from 6pm (1000 GMT) on Thursday to combat a new wave of infections.

Meanwhile, The US Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday authorized updated Covid-19 booster shots from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna that target the dominant BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron subvariants, as the government prepares for a fall vaccination campaign that could begin in a few days.

Both vaccines also include the original version of the virus targeted by all the previous Covid shots.

Experts have said that the updated vaccines will be important for older people and those who are immunocompromised but said there is limited data to support the level of protection the government has promised.

"The idea is they want protection against infection to be generated as quickly as possible in the population, but it’s unclear yet how clinically efficacious these vaccines are against BA.5 infection, and if a shorter wait period will impact efficacy because of interference by the prior immunity," said Dr. Amesh Adalja, infectious disease expert at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Baltimore.

• Abu Dhabi
• Dubai