Saudi Arabia conducts over 65,000 coronavirus tests per day: Health ministry

Saudi Arabia conducts more than 65,000 coronavirus tests per day as part of its efforts to contain the outbreak and limit the spread of the COVID-19, the Ministry of Health said on Friday.

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At the beginning of the pandemic, the Kingdom had been conducting about 1,000 Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests every day, according to the Saudi Press Agency (SPA).

By May, Saudi Arabia was conducting between 15,000 to 18,000 tests daily, the ministry said at the time.

This number appears to have risen considerably since, with the ministry saying it conducted 65,549 new tests across the country on Friday.

The risk level of the novel coronavirus outbreak in Saudi Arabia dropped in the past week, according to a COVID-19 risk level map developed by a team of health experts.

The map, which was developed by teams at Harvard’s Global Health Institute and Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, determines the severity of an outbreak in a given country based on the number of new daily reported cases.

The coronavirus outbreak in Saudi Arabia had ranked at the orange risk level earlier this month– the second highest risk category – which means the virus is quickly spreading, according to data developed by a network of health research experts.

However, as of Monday, July 13, the outbreak in the Kingdom now ranks at the yellow level – the second lowest rank, one rank below orange.

Saudi Arabia has so far reported 245,851 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus and 2,407 virus-related deaths.

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