The UAE recorded 1,874 new cases of Covid-19 on Monday. This takes the total tally of infections to 457,071. Authorities said 2,025 people recovered from the virus, bringing the total number of recoveries to 440,731. Officials also reported five deaths, increasing the number of fatalities to 1,486. The number of active cases fell to 14,854, as recoveries continued to outpace new infections for the 16th consecutive day. An additional 167,309 tests were conducted over a 24-hour period. More than 37.1 million tests have been carried out across the Emirates since the beginning of the pandemic. On Sunday, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation, and China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi launched the first Covid-19 vaccine production line in the UAE. The joint project, called Life Sciences and Vaccine Manufacturing in the UAE, will be led by Group 42, in partnership with Chinese drug maker Sinopharm. On Monday, at a virtual conference organised by the Hope Consortium – an Abu Dhabi-based logistics group set up to deliver vaccines across the globe – Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the World Health Organisation's director general, warned against delays in supplying vaccines to poor countries. This would lead to a worsening of the pandemic – particularly with the emergence of new variants that could evade existing vaccines, he said. Unfair distribution of vaccines was not just a moral outrage but "also economically and epidemiologically self-defeating". The world will not be safe until everyone is safe, Dr Tedros said.
