COVID-19: Kuwait reports the lowest number of COVID-19 cases in over a year

Kuwait City: Kuwait’s Ministry of Health on Friday reported the lowest number of COVID-19 cases since May 2020 as infections continued to decline over the past two weeks.

Kuwait recorded 766 new cases within the past 24 hours, with the majority of 26 per cent cases reported in the Kuwaiti governorate of Hawally. The percentage of swabs conducted to positive cases has gone down to 5.83 per cent, after averaging around 12 to 13 per cent last month.

The decrease signals a positive trend for the health situation in the country as Kuwait had been grappling with an increase in cases for months. In June, Kuwait recorded the highest number of COVID-19 cases and deaths since the start of the pandemic.

As for the number of deaths, five people died due to COVID-19 on Friday. According to data issued by the Ministry of Health, the majority of COVID-19 related deaths were people who were not vaccinated.

Vaccine and virus

The health situation is improving as Kuwait is ramping up its vaccination campaign and trying to get as many people as possible vaccinated.

According to Ministry of Health’s statistics, as of three weeks ago more than 2.3 million jabs have been administered of which almost one million people have received both the jabs.

Most recently, Dr Buthayna Al Mudhaf, Assistant Undersecretary for Public Health Affairs at the Ministry of Health, said that around 95,000 to 100,000 people are being vaccinated daily.

There are 32 vaccination centres in Kuwait, one of which is a drive-through centre located on the Southern Island of the Al Jaber Causeway Bridge.

Kuwait is administering the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine and is expected to receive a shipment of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine soon.