JEDDAH: Ninety percent of patients in Saudi Arabia so far diagnosed with the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) had recovered, health officials announced on Tuesday. And the latest batch of 4,526 recoveries represented more than double the number of new daily cases in the Kingdom, said the Ministry of Health. However, the infection total had now passed the 300,000 mark. The number of people getting over COVID-19 infection in the country has been fluctuating of late but has maintained momentum over figures for newly confirmed cases with total recoveries now at 272,911. Riyadh recorded the highest number of recoveries on Tuesday at 1,439, with Jeddah reporting 877, and Dammam 275. The ministry pointed out that preventive measures and health protocols introduced to limit the spread of COVID-19 had played a key role in keeping infection rates down. Saudi Arabia has been ranked 17th among the top 20 safest countries in the world during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a regional safety assessment analysis conducted by Hong Kong-based consortium, Deep Knowledge Group. As part of the Kingdom’s efforts to combat the disease, government health chiefs have increased the number of hospital intensive care beds throughout the country. There were 1,409 new cases of COVID-19 recorded on Tuesday, taking the total to 301,323. Officials said 24,942 were active cases, with 1,716 patients in a serious or critical condition. Hail reported the highest number of daily confirmed cases at 81, with Riyadh recording 64, and Al-Hofuf 62. There were 34 new deaths, raising the number of people who had died from COVID-19 in the country to 3,470. As Saudi Arabia continued to advance its efforts for early detection, 60,712 polymerase chain reaction tests were carried out in the latest 24-hour period, meaning 4,378,417 of the checks had now been conducted in the Kingdom.