Arab News 

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia announced 31 more deaths from COVID-19, raising the total number of fatalities to 2,703.

A Health Ministry statement also announced 2,201 new confirmed cases of the disease on Saturday, taking the total to 264,973,

Of the new cases, 5 percent were recorded in Riyadh with the capital reporting 118 cases. Hofuf reported 115 cases, Dammam 106, Makkah 103 and Buraidah 82.

The total number of recoveries in the Kingdom increased to 217,782 after 2,051 more patients recovered from the virus.

A total of 2,703 people have succumbed to the virus in the Kingdom so far.

Worldwide, the virus has infected more than 16 million people and killed nearly 645,000.

There were more than 280,000 new cases recorded globally on both Thursday and Friday, the highest daily increases since the pandemic began. Nearly a third of the worldwide infections have been registered since July 1.

The World Health Organization said on Saturday that more than a million cases had been recorded in each of the past five weeks. 

“While no country is unaffected, this rise is driven by high transmission in large and populous countries in the Americas and South Asia,” it said.