Coronavirus: UAE reports 1,409 Covid-19 cases, 1,434 recoveries, no deaths

The UAE Ministry of Health and Prevention on Sunday reported 1,409 cases of the Covid-19 coronavirus, along with 1.434 recoveries and no deaths.

Total active cases stand at 17,397.

The new cases were detected through 258,194 additional tests.

The total number of cases in UAE on July 17 are 973,416, while total recoveries stand at 953,694. The death toll now stands at 2,325.

Macau is set to begin another working week of partial lockdown, after the city extended the closure of its casinos and non-essential businesses to try and eradicate its worst coronavirus outbreak yet.

Authorities had announced a week of “static management” starting June 11 after recording more than 1,500 infections in the previous three weeks despite multiple rounds of compulsory mass testing of the city’s population.

The restrictions had been due to lift on Monday, but cases have continued to climb, with the Macau government saying Sunday there had been 1,733 cases recorded since the start of the outbreak.

Daily case numbers are comparatively small by global standards, but authorities have moved quickly to stamp out transmission as they adhere to mainland China’s strict zero-Covid policy.

On Saturday the government announced that the “static management” period would be extended through Friday.

All residents have to stay home except to go shopping for daily necessities and to get tested for the virus, with rule-breakers facing up to two years in jail.

Some public services and businesses such as supermarkets and pharmacies are allowed to stay open, but casinos — which in normal times account for around 80 per cent of government revenue — need to keep their doors closed.

Macau hosts a casino industry bigger than that of Las Vegas, generating more than half the city’s gross domestic product and employing nearly one-fifth of the population.

The only city in China where casino gambling is permitted, Macau has seen its vital tourism revenues wiped out by some of the world’s harshest measures to tackle the virus — including tough border controls, weeks-long quarantines and targeted lockdowns.

Macau residents may face further economic woes after city officials declared that employers are not obligated to pay workers during the Covid-related shutdown.

Meanwhile, the Indian government’s Covid-19 vaccinations hit 2 billion on Sunday, with booster doses underway for all adults, as daily infections hit four-month high, official data showed.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi extolled the vaccination milestone, celebrating the world’s largest and longest-running inoculation campaign, which began last year.

“India creates history again!” Modi said in a tweet. The prime minister has faced allegations from the opposition of mishandling the pandemic that experts claim killed millions. The government rejects the claims.

Health ministry data shows the Covid death toll at 525,709, with 49 deaths recorded overnight.

New cases rose 20,528 over the past 24 hours, the highest since February 20, according to data compiled by Reuters.

The country of 1.35 billion people has lifted most Covid-related restrictions, and international travel has recovered robustly.

Some 80 per cent of the inoculations have been the AstraZeneca vaccine made domestically, called Covishield. Others include domestically developed Covaxin and Corbevax, and Russia’s Sputnik V.

The federal government has been accelerating its booster campaign to avert the spread of infections, edging higher in the eastern states of Assam, West Bengal and Karnataka in the south.