Saudi Arabia has confirmed 1,147 new coronavirus (COVID-19) cases in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number to 11,631.
This Ministry added that the total COVID-19 death toll in the Kingdom now stands at 109 after six new fatalities were announced on April 21. The number of patients who have recovered, meanwhile, is now at 1,640.
The Kingdom’s rise in numbers is credited to its mass screening campaigns in densely populated neighborhoods, with teams doing random tests on residents and medics checking their temperatures as well as getting their swab samples for 16 hours a day.
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“We are conducting mass screenings of coronavirus to proactively increase efforts to reach populations within neighborhoods and individuals in their homes,” Minister of Health Tawfiq Al-Rabiah on his Twitter.
However, in Qatif, one of the areas in the Kingdom initially hit by COVID-19, the results in the past few days have all been negative.
In a report by Saudi Gazette, Dr. Muhammad Al-Mohsen, supervisor of sample collection at the Darain Health Center in Qatif, said that the results in those tested in the governorate were all negative.
“The proactive mass screening campaign does not target families that have contacts with infected persons, but is focusing on random screening in the targeted neighborhoods, in order to ensure that they are free from coronavirus. It is not yet decided when the campaign would come to an end,” Saudi Gazette quoted him as saying.
According to the Ministry of Health, experts have earlier warned that the cases could reach 10,000 to 200,000 in the next few weeks if residents do not take the precautionary measures seriously. Today, Minister of Health Tawfiq Al-Rabiah said they are expecting the number to further rise in the coming days.
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