Algeria Reports 104 New Coronavirus Cases

Algeria's health ministry on Friday recorded nine new coronavirus deaths, raising the death toll in the North African country to 690.

"104 new infections have been reported, taking the total number of the diagnosed cases to 9,935," the ministry said in a statement.

"156 cases have recovered today, raising the number of recovered cases to 6,453," the ministry added.

Algeria now tops the list of the Arab country regarding the coronavirus deaths.

It is worth mentioning that the concerned authorities in Algeria decided on Sunday to close shops in eleven states, just one week after opening them, according to Sky News Arabia.

Last Saturday, Algeria authorized the expansion of activity sectors and the re-opening of shops, in order to alleviate the economic and social effects imposed to contain the novel crisis of the coronavirus, COVID-19.

However, the country's authorities decided again to close shops, due to lack of adherence to the quarantine and the rules for social distancing, which led to a high death toll from infection with novel coronavirus during the past week.

The Sky News Arabia correspondent said that the closure decision is applied to the stores of refreshments, sweets, clothes, shoes, electrical appliances, household appliances, fabrics, sewing, textiles, cosmetics and perfumes stuff.

“The closure decision is put into force as from today, Sunday,” the correspondent added.

Earlier, the Algerian government decided to ease quarantine procedures as of the first day of the holy month of Ramadan. Hence, it decided to shorten the duration of the night curfew, in addition to lifting the state of complete quarantine from al-Wilaya state, south of the capital of Algiers.

It is noteworthy that Algeria recorded 4,295 cases of the novel coronavirus, along with 459 deaths, and 1,872 people are recovering.

In a related context, the Africa Center for Prevention and Control of Diseases said in its latest report published in April that there are more than 10 thousand cases of “COVID-19″ disease in the black continent.

According to recent reports, the new coronavirus has spread to almost every country in the continent. To be precise, the virus infection has appeared, till this moment, in 52 out of 54 African countries.

Although South Africa comes in the forefront of the countries most affected by the virus in the continent, in terms of infections, the Arab countries are the most affected by the “COVID-19” epidemic, with total infections and deaths.