RIYADH — Dr. Muhammad Al-Abdel Ali, assistant minister of health and spokesman of the ministry, said that the ministry has worked out a new mechanism for monitoring cases of coronavirus infection, recovery and death on a weekly basis. As per the figures in the "Weekly infection map" mechanism, it was revealed that most of the regions are at present in the green level, the spokesman said in the daily press conference to brief on the latest coronavirus situation. Al-Abdel Ali said this mechanism is a type of analysis and graphic follow-up of new confirmed cases of coronavirus every week over the coming phases and sharing the latest developments about the pandemic. "In this map, a follow-up will take place within a whole week for the number of cases that will be monitored in that week, and these figures will be compared to the total cases, which were monitored in the previous week, and accordingly we can have a comparison between the two weeks. "If there is an improvement with a decrease in the number of cases during the week compared to the previous week, the color in the map will be green, and if the cases increased in the last two weeks, the color will be red," he said while noting that in the event of fluctuations in narrow and limited levels, the map will be yellow. "This would give an indication that there is a lack of compliance with regard to precautionary measures or preventive requirements, which leads to the spread of the disease. These early signs give everyone an alert that they must play their roles," he said. Al-Abdel Ali said that the weekly infection map during the past week showed that most regions of the Kingdom are in green levels compared to the previous week. There was fluctuation in the levels of cases in the Tabuk region, and there is a limited group of regions that recorded an increase in the number of cases in the last week while compared to the previous week, and these included the regions of Riyadh, Makkah and Jazan. However, these are not at the highest levels of difference in the increase and they may report a decrease in numbers if there is a compliance of the protocols on the part of the community members, he said. The spokesman said the ministry is expecting an improvement in critical cases in the coming phase. "The rise in critical cases is linked to the increase in infections and so we hope that the compliance of community members will result in an improvement in levels from one week to the next, and we hope that the positive indices would include all regions of the Kingdom," he added.
