Saudi Arabia on right path to ‘controlling’ virus spread

JEDDAH: Decreasing numbers of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) are a positive sign indicating a control over the spread of the virus in Saudi Arabia, which recorded less than 1,000 cases for the second day in a row on Sunday.
Saudi Arabia recorded 910 newly confirmed cases, raising the total number of confirmed cases to 314,821.
Saudi Health Ministry spokesman Dr. Mohammed Al-Abd Al-Aly said that dwindling numbers are a sure sign that the Kingdom is on the right path to controlling the spread, warning: “We can still do more to ensure that the numbers continue to decrease.
“Epidemiological investigation teams tracking the spread have noticed that half of the confirmed cases recorded as of late are of people not adhering to proper protocols such as wearing masks and following social distancing measures in public places; most of them are of the youth demographic,” said Al-Aly.
“After going through a stable period, we notice a significant decrease in the number of critical care patients over the past two months and the numbers decreased by 33 percent, approximately a third of what it used to be,” he added.

There’s a noticeable 6 percent decrease in the past 10 days alone, said Al-Aly, noting that there are currently 21,284 active cases in the Kingdom, 1,545 of which are in critical care units.
On Sunday 1,226 new recoveries were recorded, raising the number of those recovered since the beginning of the pandemic to 289,667, and raising the recovery rate to 92 percent.
Thirty new fatalities were also recorded, increasing the fatality rate to 3,870.
As the Kingdom continues its efforts to actively screen cases to contain the spread of COVID-19, 37,466 new polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests have been conducted in the past 24 hours, raising the number of PCR tests to over 5 million so far.