The UAE reported 1,489 new <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/tags/covid/">Covid-19 cases</a> on Friday after an additional 297,155 tests were carried out. The new cases bring the overall tally of infections to 970,586. Another 1,499 people beat <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/uae/health/2022/01/28/how-a-dh25-covid-19-drug-helped-to-save-a-million-lives/">the virus</a>, as total recoveries climbed to 950,717. No coronavirus-related deaths were reported in the past 24 hours, and the toll remains at 2,325. More than 173 million PCR tests have been conducted since the first case in the Emirates was reported on January 29, 2020. Case numbers had been on the rise in recent weeks, after falling below 200 in early May. However, daily infection rates have started to fall, having topped 1,800 on July 3. Meanwhile, a strain of Covid-19 named Centaurus<a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/coronavirus/2022/07/14/highly-contagious-new-covid-strain-centaurus-reported-in-netherlands/" target="_blank"> has been identified by health officials in the Netherlands</a>, the latest country to detect the new subvariant of Omicron believed to be one of the most contagious yet. The BA.2.75 strain of coronavirus Sars-CoV-2 was reported by the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment on Wednesday. The subvariant of the Omicron BA.2 lineage has also been detected in, among other countries, India, Australia, Japan, Canada, the US, Germany and the UK. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has listed BA.2.75 as a "variant under monitoring", but there is no evidence to suggest it is more likely to cause serious disease.