(MENAFN- Khaleej Times)
Published: Mon 1 Aug 2022, 1:55 PM
Last updated: Mon 1 Aug 2022, 2:04 PM
The UAE Ministry of Health and Prevention on Monday reported 1,088 cases of the Covid-19 coronavirus, along with 1,004 recoveries and no deaths.
Total active cases stand at 18,560.
The new cases were detected through 162,695 additional tests.
The total number of cases in UAE as on August 1 are 992,652, while total recoveries stand at 971,757. The death toll now stands at 2,335.
Over 177.5 million PCR tests have been conducted in the country so far.
Macau will reopen public services and entertainment facilities , and allow dining-in at restaurants from Tuesday, authorities said, as the world's biggest gambling hub seeks a return to normalcy after finding no Covid-19 cases for nine straight days.
Beauty salons, fitness centres, and bars will be allowed to resume operations, the government said in a statement on Monday .
Health authorities require that residents wear masks when they go out , and show a negative coronavirus test within three days to enter most venues.
'There have been no community infection cases in Macau for nine consecutive days... and the risk of the spread of the coronavirus has been greatly reduced,' they said.
The former Portuguese colony has reported around 1,800 infections since mid-June , when it was hit with its worst coronavirus outbreak that forced the closure of casinos and locked down most of the city.
Macau reopened its casinos on July 23, as authorities began unwinding stringent measures which required most businesses and premises to shut down.
This is the first time Macau has had to grapple with the fast spreading Omicron variant .
More than 90 per cent of Macau's residents are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 , but authorities have closely followed China's zero-Covid-19 mandate, which seeks to curb all outbreaks at almost any cost, contrary to the rest of the world which is already living with the virus.
The city only has one public hospital which was already overburdened, even before the pandemic.
While Macau's casinos are open, there is likely to be no business for at least a few weeks, analysts said, due to strict restrictions still in place.
Meanwhile, China's factory activity contracted unexpectedly in July after bouncing back from Covid-19 lockdowns the month before, as fresh virus flare-ups and a darkening global outlook weighed on demand, a survey showed on Sunday.
The official manufacturing purchasing managers' Index (PMI) fell to 49 in July from 50.2 in June, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said, below the 50-point mark that separates contraction from growth and the lowest in three months.
Analysts polled by Reuters had expected a reading of 50.4.
“The level of economic prosperity in China has fallen, the foundation for recovery still needs consolidation,” NBS senior statistician Zhao Qinghe said in a statement on the NBS website .
Continued contraction in the energy-intensive industries, such as petrol, coking coal and ferrous metals, contributed most to pulling down the July manufacturing PMI, he said.
Sub-indexes for output and new orders fell by three points and about two points in July , respectively, while the employment sub-index edged down by 0.1 point.
Weak demand has constrained recovery, Bruce Pang, chief economist and head of research at Jones Lang Lasalle Inc, said in a research note.“Q3 growth may face greater challenges than expected, as recovery is slow and fragile ,” he added.
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