Coronavirus: UAE reports 623 Covid-19 cases, 640 recoveries, no deaths

The UAE Ministry of Health and Prevention on Monday reported 623 cases of the Covid-19 coronavirus, along with 640 recoveries and no deaths.

Total active cases stand at 19,271.

The new cases were detected through 163,744 additional tests.

The total number of cases in UAE as on August 22 are 1,010,399, while total recoveries stand at 988,787. The death toll now stands at 2,341.

On Monday, millions of children in the Philippines returned to school as the academic year began, with many taking their seats in classrooms for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic hit.

The Philippines is one of the last countries in the world to resume full-time, in-person lessons — sparking warnings that the prolonged closure of classrooms had worsened the education crisis in the country.

Children in masks and uniforms lined up for a temperature check and a squirt of hand sanitiser at the Pedro Guevara Elementary School in Manila, which had shut classrooms since March 2020.

Meanwhile, the UN health agency said there were 5.4 million new Covid-19 cases reported last week, a decline of 24 per cent from the previous week. Infections fell everywhere in the world, including by nearly 40 per cent in Africa and Europe and by a third in the Middle East. Covid deaths rose in the Western Pacific and Southeast Asia by 31 per cent and 12 per cent respectively, but fell or remained stable everywhere else.

At a press briefing Wednesday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said reported coronavirus deaths over the past month have surged 35 per cent, and noted there had been 15,000 deaths in the past week.

• Abu Dhabi
• Dubai