RIYADH — Saudi Arabia has confirmed 2,509 new coronavirus cases after conducting 16,140 new tests over the past 24 hours, raising the total to 59,854 cases, according to the health ministry. Additionally, 2,886 new recoveries were recorded taking the total to 31,634. More than 50 percent of those who became infected in Saudi Arabia have recovered, ministry spokesman Dr. Muhammad Al-Abdel Ali was quoted by the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) as saying. He also announced nine new fatalities, raising the Kingdom’s relatively low death toll to 329. The health sector"s coronavirus treatment protocol, extensive testing and active screenings have helped the Kingdom maintain its relatively low death rate of less than 0.6 percent, Health Minister Dr. Tawfiq Al-Rabiah said earlier this month. Of the newly detected cases, 26 percent are female and 74 percent are male. The spokesman also said 35 percent of the new cases are Saudi nationals while 65 percent are of other nationalities. Riyadh with 730 cases topped the list. It was followed by 526 cases in Jedah, 385 in Makkah, 296 in Madinah, and 117 in Hufof. There were 87 infections in Dammam, 36 in Jubail, 19 in Dhahran, 18 in Hazm Al-Jalameed, 16 each in Qatif and Tabuk; 12 each in Buraidah and Shagran and 10 in Al-Kharj. The rest of about 120 cases were recorded in cities and provinces around the Kingdom, the spokesman said. Three factors have contributed to the increase in the number of daily new cases, he explained. First, a virus outbreak naturally causes an increase in the number of infections then the daily numbers eventually begin to decline, according to Dr. Al-Abdel Ali. Second, he said, that the ministry has increased its testing capacity and continues to do so in order to detect as many cases as possible. Over the past month, the ministry has conducted three-times as many screenings as in previous months. The third reason that the spokesman mentioned was individuals are not maintaining social distancing rules and are not abiding with precautionary measures. These factors have also contributed to the increase in numbers. Health Minister Al-Rabiah has warned that the number of cases in the Kingdom could reach up to 200,000, based on four different studies conducted by Saudi and foreign experts. His lower estimate was 10,000. The country has the most total confirmed coronavirus cases in the region. However, it is also by far the largest country in the GCC, both in terms of population and area.