Egypt Reports 1121 New Coronavirus Cases, 13 Deaths

On Friday, Egypt’s Health Ministry reported 1121 new coronavirus cases, bringing the country’s total up to 488763.

The total number of COVID-19-related deaths has now reached 24162 nationwide after the ministry announced 13 deaths.

About 983 patients were discharged from quarantine at isolation hospitals, raising the total number of fully-recovered cases to 418462.

The recent spike in infections comes as Egypt continues to push ahead with efforts to expand its vaccination campaign to vaccinate 70% of the population by the second half of 2022 amid the outbreak of the omicron variant.

Egypt has administered a total of 37.8 million first vaccine doses and 26.9 million second doses since the start of the mass vaccination campaign in January of 2021, according to the health ministry’s daily statistics.

As many as 628,111 booster shots have been administered in recent weeks as well, bringing the total number of doses administered since the start of the campaign to 65.4 million.

“Egypt is expected to witness a decline in infections in two to three weeks,” Hossam Abdel-Ghaffar, the health ministry’s spokesperson, said in remarks to the media.