Coronavirus: Saudi Arabia reports nine deaths, 1,197 new cases

Saudi Arabia reported nine new deaths and 1,197 new cases of the coronavirus in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of cases in the Kingdom to 16,299, Ministry of Health spokesman said on Friday.

The total number of virus-related deaths in the country reached 136, he added.

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A total of 115 cases are in a “critical condition” and are in the ICU, he added.

As many as 166 people have recovered from COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, making the total of recoveries 2215.

As many as 364 cases were reported in Mecca while 271 were reported in Jeddah, 170 in Riyadh and 120 in Medina.

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The other cases were detected in several cities and provinces around the Kingdom.

Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Health Tawfiq al-Rabiah said on Monday that the spike in the numbers of daily reported coronavirus cases this week is due to cases being detected by the expanded field testing programs.

Medical teams have been conducting mass coronavirus screenings in neighborhoods across the Kingdom since Friday to ensure that cases are detected early.

“Instead of waiting for someone to tell us that they have been infected and having to isolate all those who had direct contact with them, we go to the neighborhoods that we feel might have a lot of cases. We go to homes, we go to residential complexes so we can discover the cases before they come to us,” al-Rabiah said.