Saudi Arabia reports further drop in COVID cases with 677 new infections, one death

Saudi Arabia’s daily COVID-19 numbers continued dropping, with 677 new cases and one virus-related death reported on February 24, according to the Ministry of Health.

On February 19, for the first time since January 1, 2022, daily reported coronavirus infections dropped below 1,000.

Case numbers reached a pandemic high on January 19 when 5,928 were recorded. Since then, numbers have steadily dropped.

Saudi Arabia recorded its first case of omicron in early December, and case numbers spiked in the following weeks.

A total of 742,541 COVID-19 cases and 8,991 virus-related deaths have now been recorded in the Kingdom since the beginning of the pandemic.

In the past 24 hours there were also 1,585 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 718,979.

Saudi Arabia continues to roll out its vaccination program. A total of 60,611,130 vaccine doses have now been administered since the beginning of the pandemic.

Precautionary methods

Authorities in the Kingdom are offering booster vaccine shots to people immediately after recovering from the virus. It is also available three months after the second dose for those who have not tested positive.

The Ministry of Interior now mandates that citizens traveling outside the country must take a third dose.

Exceptions to this rule include those younger than 16 years of age and citizens who have an exempt status on the Tawakkalna application.

Booster shots are required to be considered “immune” in the country’s contact-tracing Tawakkalna app for people over 18 who were vaccinated more than eight months ago.