国际英语新闻:Egypt sets new daily record with 47 deaths from COVID-19

CAIRO, June 2 (Xinhua) -- Egypt on Tuesday set a new record with 47 single-day fatalities from COVID-19, bringing the death toll in country to 1,052, said the Egyptian Health Ministry.

A total of 1,152 new cases were recorded, raising the total infections with the coronavirus in Egypt since mid-February to 27,536, the ministry's spokesman Khaled Megahed said in a statement.

It is the sixth consecutive day for Egypt's COVID-19 daily infections to surpass 1,000.

Megahed added that 380 coronavirus patients were completely cured and discharged from hospitals on Tuesday, increasing the total recoveries to 6,827.

He underscored Egypt's close cooperation and coordination with the World Health Organization regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, case detection and necessary medical care.

Egypt announced its first confirmed COVID-19 infection on Feb. 14 and the first death from the highly infectious virus on March 8, both of whom were foreigners.

Since March 25, the Egyptian government has been imposing a constantly renewed nighttime curfew, which varied between nine and 13 hours, to curb the spread of the virus.

The current nine-hour nighttime curfew will continue until mid-June, when the government will consider easing relevant restrictions amid a "coexistence plan" to maintain anti-coronavirus precautionary measures while resuming services, businesses and economic activities.

The government has already started gradual reopening of services and offices that have been halted since mid-March, and allowed reopening of dozens of hotels for local tourists with 50-percent capacity.

Egypt and China have been cooperating closely in combating COVID-19 through exchanging medical aid and expertise to curb the spread of the deadly respiratory disease.

Since mid-April, Chinese doctors have held three video conferences with Egyptian counterparts to share their experiences in the prevention and treatment of the novel coronavirus.