Covid in UAE: Daily cases hit 2,600-mark

The UAE Ministry of Health and Prevention on Sunday reported 2,600 cases of the Covid-19 coronavirus, along with 890 recoveries and three deaths.

Total active cases stand at 18,072.

The new cases were detected through 429,564 additional tests.

The total number of cases in UAE as on January 2 are 767,093, while total recoveries stand at 746,853. The death toll now stands at 2,168.

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New Australian Covid-19 cases dipped on Sunday as testing slowed over a holiday weekend, but remained well over 30,000 and hospitalisations rose further in New South Wales as concerns grow about potential strains on the national health system.

Newly diagnosed cases in New South Wales, the most populous state, dropped to 18,278 from 22,577 the day before as the number of tests conducted on New Year’s Day dropped by a quarter, health department figures showed.

But hospitalisations, which authorities have signalled is a figure they are more closely monitoring than total case numbers as they shift towards living with the virus, jumped by 18 per cent to 1,066.

Meanwhile, France will relax Covid isolation rules from Monday, the government announced, in a bid to ease their impact on society and the economy.

Fully vaccinated people who test positive will only have to isolate for seven days regardless of the coronavirus variant they were infected with, but can leave quarantine after five days if they show an antigen or negative PCR test.

There will be no quarantine for fully inoculated individuals who have a close contact test positive.

However, people must respect protective measures and "undergo regular testing", health minister Olivier Veran said in an interview with Le Journal du Dimanche.

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• Abu Dhabi