Medical sources at the Red Sea governorate confirmed Saturday that 105 positive cases of the coronavirus were discovered among Egyptian passengers returning to Marsa Alam airport from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
These cases were allowed to return home to self-isolate and receive medications from the Health Ministry, after they signed statements promising to commit to self-isolation for a period of two weeks.
During the past few days, Marsa Alam hotels have witnessed the departure of dozens of returnees from abroad, to spend the isolation period at home rather than quarantine in hotels.
Egyptian authorities on Wednesday abolished the mandatory seven-day quarantine imposed on Egyptian citizens returning from abroad on charter flights organized by the Egyptian Ministry of Civil Aviation. Passengers are instead obliged to self-isolate at home for several days to make sure they do not have coronavirus.
Egypt’s Ministry of Health in May reduced the quarantine period for Egyptian returnees to seven days, down from 14.
More than 20,000 Egyptians have returned from various countries since the pandemic began, and there are planes yet to take off that will bring home stranded citizens from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Cyprus and Europe.
Egypt on Saturday confirmed 1,497 new coronavirus cases, bringing the country’s number of confirmed total cases so far to 32,612.
The total number of COVID-19 deaths has now reached 1,198 nationwide, after announcing 32 deaths.
The newly infected cases are all Egyptian nationals, Health Ministry Spokesperson Khaled Megahed said, adding that the total number of fully-recovered cases rose to 8,538, all of whom have been discharged from isolation hospitals.
Around 380 left quarantine on Saturday.
