UAE reports 796 cases, 4 deaths, urges against Eid gatherings, feasts

The UAE reported on Saturday 796 cases of coronavirus infection and four deaths, raising the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country up to 22,627 and the death toll up to 214.

The number of recovered patients also increased by 603 new recoveries up to a total of 7,931.

Dr. Amna al-Dahak al-Shamsi, spokesperson of the UAE Government urged the public to avoid social gatherings and visits during the upcoming Eid al-Fitr.

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“Because Eid is associated with social visits, gatherings, and banquets, we advise all families to avoid these habits,” she said.

“Imagine that one of the family members is infected, because he came into contact with an infected individual without knowing and didn’t show any symptoms, and this person began to greet his grandfather, the children, and the rest of the family, and spent the rest of the day with them without observing the precautionary measures, which will cause the transmission of the infection to a number of other family members,” she added.

“At the end of the day, each family member will return to his home and go one with his normal life, without knowing that he’s been infected. Maybe one of them will pass by his friends to say hello and another will return to work after Eid holiday. That is when the 40 cases become more than a 100, and this is only one scenario on the first day of Eid. Replicated within more than one family, the number of family members will multiply, and the hundreds become thousands.”

Al-Shamsi stressed that, within that scenario, the symptoms of people with chronic diseases and elderly family members might worsen, simply because they didn’t adhere to a few precautionary measures and underestimated the basic principle for containing the spread of the coronavirus, which is physical distance and avoiding gatherings.