Last week, Egypt reported a daily average of 89 infections and six deaths over the period of 16 to 22 April 2022, continuing the decline in confirmed cases that has been ongoing since the end of the fifth wave of the coronavirus in February.

According to the Ministry of Health and Population’s weekly update on the coronavirus pandemic nationwide, a daily average of 62 people were discharged from hospitals over the past seven days, bringing the total number of recoveries since the outbreak began in February 2020 up to 445,139.

More than 44.9 million people have received their first dose of the coronavirus vaccine; more than 34.4 million have been fully vaccinated; and more than 2.6 million individuals have received their booster shoot since the start of the country’s mass vaccination campaign last year.

The ministry previously said that for life in Egypt to return to the way it was pre-pandemic, 70 percent of the population must be vaccinated — a goal that the country seeks to achieve by mid-2022.

As of mid-March, the health ministry started to issue weekly — instead of daily — reports on the number of coronavirus infections and deaths.

Due to the decline in the rate of infections, the country has reduced the number of isolation hospitals nationwide.

Egypt has also eased many of its coronavirus restrictions during the holy month of Ramadan, which started earlier in April.

This included lifting a two-year suspension on the traditional Ramadan charity banquets and allowing mosques to conduct afternoon prayer sermons (El-Asr) and mass Ramadan night prayers (Taraweeh) during the holy month.

For the first time since the start of the pandemic in 2020, The Ministry of Religious Endowments allowed Ramadan’s late-night prayers (Tahajjud) at all large mosques on the last three nights of the holy month.

The ministry also allocated 600 open-air areas countrywide for Eid Al-Fitr prayers, ending a two-year ban due to the pandemic.