JEDDAH: Scientific evidence shows that people cannot contract coronavirus more than once, the Saudi Ministry of Health said on Thursday as the Kingdom recorded a 12 percent drop in critical cases during the past two weeks.

“We witnessed stability in the number of critical cases monitored and a 12 percent decrease in the number of critical cases in the Kingdom during the past two weeks,” said ministry spokesman Dr. Mohammed Al-Abd Al-Aly.

He said people showed their commitment to following preventive measures during the Eid Al-Adha holiday, and added that precautions and health awareness contributed to the decline in recorded cases.

Al-Aly said that together with the decline in critical cases, there was also a drop in daily recorded cases.

“We were at the level of 5,000 cases per day a month ago, while now there are about 1,500 cases daily. These indicators are promising,” he said.

Saudi Arabia reported 1,402 new cases on Thursday, meaning that 284,226 people have now contracted the disease. There were 34,082 active cases, with 1,992 in critical condition. The ministry said 249 of the newly recorded cases were in Makkah, while the Eastern Province reported 243 and Riyadh 203.

In addition, 1,775 cases have recovered from the disease, bringing the total recovery number to 247,089.

The ministry recorded 35 new COVID-19-related deaths in the last 24 hours. The death toll now stands at 3,055.

Saudi Arabia has so far conducted 3,635,705 tests for COVID-19, with 55,566 carried out in the last 24 hours.

Al-Aly said the world is close to recording 19 million confirmed cases of coronavirus.

“This indicates that the virus is still active and its spread is accelerating in a number of countries — currently, 1 million cases are reported within three to four days,” he said.