The UAE reported 1,096 new cases of Covid-19 on Tuesday, after conducting a further 135,883 tests. Over the past 24 hours, 742 people have been cleared of the virus while three patients died of related complications. Officials said this raised the country's tallies to 144,385 cases, 139,701 recoveries and 518 deaths since the outbreak. Almost 97 per cent of the UAE's cases have ended in recovery, while less than 0.4 per cent have led to death. The UAE has carried out more than 14.2 million Covid-19 tests since January, making it one of the top countries for testing worldwide. Although daily case numbers have been rising since August, when new infection figures dipped to 164, the number of active cases has been kept reasonably low due to the high number of recoveries. The number of active cases is currently 4,166 - more than double the 1,822 patients who were battling the virus last week. It came as NYU Abu Dhabi announced its researchers developed a test that can detect the Covid-19 virus in asymptomatic patients and those in the early stages of infection. The new, three-step tests will have a greater accuracy than the commonly used Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR). PCR tests can give a false negative reading if a test is carried out soon after exposure to the virus. The test can miss lower viral loads, which are harder to detect.
