With the current wave of Covid-19 raging in Qatar, extra precautions are the need of the hour, as suggested by Dr Abdullatif al-Khal, chair of the National Strategic Group on Covid-19 and head of the Infectious Diseases Division at Hamad Medical Corporation, last Wednesday, on Qatar TV. The decision to re-impose some restrictions on commercial activities has been implemented from Saturday, in line with current developments and to complement previous decisions and measures taken by Qatar to preserve the safety and health of citizens and residents as well as to limit the spread of the pandemic. As Dr al-Khal urged, Qatar residents should be extra careful over the next three to four weeks as the current wave of Covid-19 is yet to peak. Statistics issued by the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) prove that the new daily cases have grown ten-fold over 13 days until January 8, 2022. If the total new cases were 343 on December 27, 2021, they shot up to 3,487 on January 8, 2022. The rate of increase in the community is a little over ten-fold while among the returning travellers, it is almost seven-fold.
The compliance of people with the preventive and precautionary measures will further ensure their protection against the new variant Omicron, which spreads and infects quickly, as the senior health official pointed out. In particular, they should wear face masks in the proper way whenever and wherever applicable and maintain safe distance from others, in addition to avoiding crowds and travelling to the destinations where the disease is rampant unless necessary. Dr al-Khal has warned that though the number of new cases shot up dramatically recently, the pinnacle of the curve is still to come, and people should be co-operative to be able to avoid any hike in new cases. The new variant has mild to average symptoms and rarely need any medical care or attention, especially for the healthy people, fully vaccinated and those free from chronic disease or compromised immunity.
Since mid-October last year the numbers started to increase slightly, yet because of the high vaccination rate in Qatar, which reached above 85%, the situation in Qatar is much better than other places. This pandemic is the severest the world has faced over the past 100 years, and the situation in Qatar reflects the global situation as it has never been experienced on such a scale before. The vulnerable people such as the elderly and those with chronic disease must be given extra care as contracting the Covid-19 infection could involve high risks for some of them. Currently, there are 38 cases in the ICU and none of them got the booster or third dose, while some passed more than six months after the second dose and others never took any dose of the vaccine.
“The booster dose is easily accessible through various means, including the PHCC centres. In addition, the vaccination centre at Umm Garn will have a large capacity,” Dr al-Khal said referring to the Qatar Vaccination Center – for Business and Industry Sector, opened yesterday and will administer Covid-19 vaccines to key business and industry workers. Yet another development is the MoPH opening a drive-through Covid-19 PCR testing centre in Lusail last Thursday to significantly expand capacity and enhance accessibility for swabbing. The new 10 lane drive-through centre can swab up to 5,000 people a day. Rapid Antigen Tests will continue to be provided at the Primary Health Care Corporation health centres. The new drive-through testing centre will be open seven days a week from 8am to 10pm as demand for Covid-19 testing remains exceptionally high due to the Omicron wave. These are challenging times, indeed.
