UAE confirms 1,292 new cases of Covid-19 from 137,000 tests

The number of daily tests was one of the highest to date

A man wearing a face mask as a preventive measure against the coronavirus walks along a street in New Delhi. AFP

Travellers wearing face masks to protect against the coronavirus sit at a boarding gate at the Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport in Shanghai. AP Photo

Women exercise during a therapy session in a park in Sarajevo, Bosnia. AP Photo

Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam speaks during a press briefing for the media in Beijing. EPA

Closed shops are pictured in an almost deserted Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, as the region of Lombardy becomes a 'red zone', closing bars, restaurants and most shops to tackle the spread of the coronavirus, in Milan, Italy. Reuters

A health worker, clad in her PPE suit as a precaution against the Covid-19 coronavirus, falls asleep after tending to patients at a public health centre in Bandung, West Java. AFP

Protective masks decorated by students at the New York University Shanghai campus in Shanghai, China. Bloomberg

View of information and recruitment modules for administering the Phase 3 vaccines against Covid-19 of the Chinese pharmaceutical company CanSino Biologics at the town hall, in Oaxaca de Juarez, Mexico. AFP

A Swiss health worker is monitoring a patient at the intensive care unit for patients infected with Covid-19 at the hospital of La-Chaux-de-Fonds. AFP

Travellers wearing face masks to protect against the coronavirus walk at the Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport in Shanghai. AP Photo

A staff member wears a mask to protect herself from the coronavirus as she stands outside the office of the principal at the Government Senior Secondary School in Dari, near Dharmsala, India. AP Photo

A man looks on during a Black Lives Matter protest in New York. EPA

The UAE reported 1,292 more coronavirus cases on Friday following 137,606 tests in the past 24 hours.

Officials said two more deaths were confirmed and 818 people recovered.

The total number of cases since the outbreak began was 139,891, with 510 deaths and 136,936 recoveries.

The number of tests was among the highest daily figure since the outbreak began.

Testing centres are typically busiest at the end of the week as people in key professions, such as teachers and taxi drivers are routinely screened in large numbers.

In other developments, at a conference hosted by Saudi Arabia on Thursday, doctors they had found patients that had a serious form of Covid-19 were less likely to suffer from reinfection.

“Reinfection is happening but it is rare,” said Dr Naif Alharbi, director of vaccine development at King Abdullah International Medical Research Centre, one of the Middle East's top research facilities.

“I haven’t seen any severe cases so far so we cannot firmly determine whether immunity will be effective or not.

“If a person suffers from a mild or asymptotic case, the higher the chance of re-infection as the antibodies will not have built up as much.”