In line with global trend of decrease in the number of COVID-19 cases, Qatar has also recorded a 43% drop in daily new cases in the last 10 days.
The Ministry of Public Health reported 442 new COVID-19 cases yesterday which is a drop by 341 cases compared to February 10 when the number of registered cases stood at 783. Also the number of new cases in Qatar dipped below 500 for the second consecutive day as the ongoing wave of Omicron variant infections further receded.
Average weekly COVID-19 cases have been steadily declining in February. On January 30, average weekly COVID-19 cases in Qatar were 2,042; they declined to 930 on February 11 and again reduced to 513 on February 19.
Qatar has seen a reduction in number of new COVID-19 cases similar to a worldwide drop by 19 percent in the past week, according to the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) latest report on the pandemic.
The WHO has said that “just over 16 million new cases and just under 75,000 new deaths were reported,” globally during the week of February 7 to February 13.
The Ministry of Public Health reported a total of 678 people recovering from COVID-19 yesterday, bringing the total number of people recovered in Qatar to 347,821.
Also as many as 2,864 COVID-19 vaccine doses were administered in 24 hours and 1,129,495 COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered since the start of the National COVID-19 Vaccination Program.
Also 6,201,271 booster doses have been administered till now while 87.5% percent of the total population is now fully vaccinated with two doses.
The Ministry has said repeatedly taht the pandemic is not over and it is premature for individuals to think that the end might be imminent. “The most recent data appears to show that we have reached the peak of this third wave as the number of new daily cases is now declining,” the Ministry said in its daily COVID-19 report.
The Ministry also said that the support of the community in adhering to the government restrictions and standard COVID-19 precautions, as well as high vaccination rate, has played a significant role in this regard. “However, the virus is still circulating in Qatar and with high numbers of new cases continuing to be identified each day and it is very important that people continue to act cautiously and follow the restrictions and preventive measures,” it said.
“There is clear evidence of the protective effects of the vaccines and the majority of patients being admitted to ICU with COVID-19 are either unvaccinated or had their second dose more than 6 months ago and have not received a booster dose,” the Ministry added.