UAE: 18,542 Covid vaccine doses administered in 24 hours

The UAE has administered 18,542 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine in the past 24 hours.

The country's Ministry of Health and Prevention (MoHAP) said the total doses administered now stand at 22.6 million.

This takes the rate of doses to 229.50 doses per 100 people.

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Children in secondary schools in England will be told to wear face coverings when they return after the Christmas holiday next week to tackle a surge in cases of the Omicron variant of Covid-19, Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi said on Sunday.

“We want to maximise the number of children in school and college for the maximum amount of time,” he said in an article in the Sunday Telegraph.

“One of the additional, temporary measures that will help achieve this in light of the Omicron surge is recommending face coverings are worn in secondary school classrooms and teaching spaces for the coming weeks - although not for longer than they are needed.”

England was the only one of the four UK nations where face coverings were not previously recommended in the classroom.

A surge of Omicron infections could see Israel reaching herd immunity, the country’s top health official said on Sunday as daily cases continued to climb.

The highly transmissible Omicron variant has brought a surge in coronavirus cases across the globe. Worldwide infections have hit a record high, with an average of just over a million cases detected a day between December 24 and 30, according to Reuters data. Deaths, however, have not risen in kind, bringing hope the new variant is less lethal.

Until late December, Israel managed to stave off Omicron to some degree but with infection rates now gaining pace, daily cases are expected to reach record highs in the coming three weeks. This could result in herd immunity, said director-general of the health ministry, Nachman Ash.

“The cost will be a great many infections,” Ash told 103FM Radio. “The numbers will have to be very high in order to reach herd immunity. This is possible but we don’t want to reach it by means of infections, we want it to happen as a result of many people vaccinating,” he said.

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