Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, the United Arab Emirates has been a leader in COVID-19 testing.
Now, the nation has reached a major milestone – it has become the first country in the world where the amount of tests conducted has exceeded the population. It should be noted this applies to countries with populations of over one million.
As of this week, the UAE has carried over 10.32 million tests since COVID-19 was officially confirmed as a pandemic by the World Health Organisation in March. It’s currently estimated the UAE populations is at around 9.6 million.
In a press briefing earlier this week, official spokesperson for the UAE government, Dr Omar Al Hammadi, explained that in the seven day period from September 30 to October 6 there had been 720,802 tests conducted.
According to Dr Al Hammadi, this is an 8 per cent increase week on week.
As the country continues its mass testing strategy, cases have been rising in recent weeks and the government has reaffirmed the need for social distancing.
To date, the UAE has had 101,840 confirmed cases of COVID-19. At present, 9,694 of those are active cases and there have been 436 deaths.
