Saudi Arabia has recorded 2,523 new COVID-19 cases and four virus-related deaths in the last 24 hours, according to the Kingdom’s Ministry of Health.

A total of 724,525 COVID-19 cases and 8,969 virus-related deaths have now been recorded in Saudi Arabia since the beginning of the pandemic.

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The critical cases count is 1,040 according to the same report.

In the last 24 hours there were also 3,825 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 685,536.

The Kingdom has administered 59,264,564 vaccine doses to its population of around 35 million, the health ministry said.

Authorities in the Kingdom will offer booster vaccine shots to people immediately after recovering from the virus, the health ministry announced last week.

The booster shot is available three months after the second dose for those who have not tested positive.

The Ministry of Interior also announced last week that citizens traveling outside the country must take a third dose starting from February 9.

Exceptions to this rule include those younger than 16 years of age and citizens who have an exempt status on the Tawakkalna application.

Booster shots are now required to be considered “immune” in the country’s contact-tracing Tawakkalna app for people over 18 who were vaccinated more than eight months ago.

Simultaneously, authorities also passed a law mandating all arrivals into the Kingdom present a negative PCR or antigen test report within 48 hours before departing to and arriving in Saudi Arabia.

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