Egypt reports 1st drop below 1,000 new coronavirus cases since Dec. 24

CAIRO – 9 January 2021: Egypt's Health Ministry said 989 new coronavirus cases were detected on Saturday, the country’s first drop below 1,000 new cases since December 23.

This comes as Egypt is currently experiencing a second wave of coronavirus.

This ups the total number of confirmed cases to 148,799.

Spokesman for the Health Ministry Khaled Megahed said 57 patients have died from the virus over the past 24 hours, raising the death toll to 8,142.

As many as 765 patients were discharged from isolation hospitals after receiving necessary medical care, taking the number of recovered cases to 118,294 so far, the spokesman said.

On Saturday, Deputy health minister in Qalyubia governorate Hamdy Al-Tabbakh has died of the novel virus, the ministry said.

“Egypt has lost today one of the Health Ministry’s faithful leaders, who had served his homeland with full sincerity and dedication to work,” the ministry cited Minister Hala Zayed as saying.