KUWAIT — Kuwait announced on Friday that 20 new cases have tested positive with the coronavirus in the past 24 hours, raising the total number of persons infected with the virus to 100, Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) reported. Kuwait’s Ministry of Health said in a statement that 15 of Firday"s cases are citizens who traveled back from Iran and are still quarantined, while another citizen was in the United Kingdom and one other citizen had returned from the United States. The other three cases are a Spanish citizen, who recently returned from Spain, and two Egyptians, who were in contact with a person who had come from Azerbaijan. The statement also noted that two patients were moved out the intensive care unit, while one was still in a critical condition and the state of the other two ICU-bound patients is reported to be stable. The statement added that the ministry took a total of 7,525 samples from people for testing. Meanwhile, Tareq Al-Mizrem, head of the Kuwait"s Center for Government Communication (CGC) and its official spokesperson, assured that there is no lockdown at the moment in Kuwait, denouncing rumors of the imposition of a lockdown. Al-Mizrem, in a tweet, said that should there be such a decision, it would be announced in a transparent manner through official media channels. He urged all to implement all guidelines and instructions of preventive measures set out by the Health Ministry. Meanwhile, Kuwait’s religious authorities asked Muslims to pray at home on Friday as Gulf Arab states stepped up measures to fight the spread of the new coronavirus. — SG