Coronavirus: UAE reports 237 new cases from 298,981 tests

No deaths have been reported since March 7

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The UAE reported 237 new Covid-19 cases on Wednesday after a further 298,981 tests were carried out.

The new cases bring the tally of infections to 894,523.

No deaths have been reported since March 7 and the toll remained at 2,302.

Another 486 people beat the virus, taking the tally of recoveries to 875,602.

Daily case numbers have dropped significantly in recent months after topping 3,000 in January following the emergence of the Omicron variant.

Despite the decline in infection rates, authorities have warned the public against complacency and urged them to follow social-distancing rules and to wear face masks in closed spaces.

Sarah Al Amiri, Minister of State for Advanced Technology, on Monday said the coronavirus pandemic was “far from over” and called for faster action in providing poor and war-torn countries with vaccines.

Ms Al Amiri told the UN Security Council that only about a tenth of people in strife-ridden nations had received Covid-19 vaccines, and in some hotspots less than 1 per cent of the population had been inoculated.

Meanwhile, South African scientists have discovered two new sublineages of the Omicron coronavirus variant.

They have been named BA.4 and BA.5 but have not caused a surge in infections and have been found in samples from a number of countries, said Tulio de Oliveira, who runs the gene-sequencing institutions in the country.

South Africa and Botswana were the first to discover Omicron in November and the former was the first country to be hit by a wave of infections caused by the strain.

But the number of deaths and people requiring hospital treatment were a fraction of those caused by the Delta variant, even as daily cases hit a record high in December.

Updated: April 13, 2022, 4:40 PM