UAE: 4,931 vaccine doses administered in 24 hours

The UAE has administered 4,931 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 24.6 million.

This takes the rate of doses to 249.19 doses per 100 people.

For many US Christians, this weekend marks the first time since 2019 that they will gather in person on Easter Sunday, a welcome chance to celebrate one of the year’s holiest days side by side with fellow congregants.

The pandemic erupted in the country in March 2020, just ahead of Easter, forcing many churches to resort to online or televised worship. Many continued to hold virtual services last spring after a deadly winter wave of the coronavirus and as vaccination campaigns were still ramping up. But this year more churches are opening their doors for Easter services with few Covid-19 restrictions, in line with broader societal trends.

Among them are Catholic parishes in the Archdiocese of Boston, which since last June has once again required most churchgoers to attend Mass in person — though those with health risks may still watch remotely, and pastors have been asked to make space for social distancing in churches.

MC Sullivan, chief health care ethicist for the archdiocese, said celebrating Mass communally is important to how Catholics profess their faith. Church attendance has been trending upward, and parishioners are excited to gather again to commemorate Christ’s resurrection.

Shanghai has set a target to stop the spread of Covid-19 outside of quarantined areas by Wednesday, two people familiar with the matter said, which would allow city to further ease its lockdown and start returning to normal life as public frustrations grow.

The target will require officials to accelerate Covid testing and the transfer of positive cases to quarantine centres, according to a speech by a local Communist Party official dated Saturday, a copy of which was seen by Reuters.

Ending community-level transmission has been a turning point for other Chinese localities that locked down, such as Shenzhen city which last month reopened public transport and let businesses go back to work shortly after achieving that target.

Shanghai has become the epicentre of China’s largest outbreak since the virus was first identified in Wuhan in late 2019, and has recorded more than 320,000 Covid infections since early March when its surge began.

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