COVID-19 cases drop below 300 for first time since January

(MENAFN - The Peninsula) In a positive development, new daily COVID-19 cases reported in the country have dropped below 300 for the first time since end of January. According to the daily report by the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH), 299 new confirmed cases were announced yesterday. Among them 176 were from community cases and 123 among travellers return from abroad. Also 752 people have recovered from the virus yesterday, bringing the total number of cases recovered in Qatar to 205,160. In addition, the Ministry announced three new deaths, aged 45, 54, and 57, all of which had a history of chronic disease. All were receiving the necessary medical care. Some 3,709 people were tested for the first time yesterday taking the total tests done so far to 1,961,687 since the beginning of the pandemic. Chair of the National Health Strategic Group on COVID-19, Dr. Abdullatif Al Khal recently said that, ''In recent weeks the combined impact of COVID-19 restrictions and increasing vaccination rates, and the overwhelming support of the community, has resulted in a consistent reduction in the number of new daily infections in the country.” Chair of the National Health Strategic Group on COVID-19, Dr. Abdullatif Al Khal, cautioned that people still need to be cautious as the community is still dealing with two highly contagious and highly virulent strains of the virus that are actively circulating in the community. With the number of community cases declining, infections from returning travellers now make up a larger proportion of the total daily cases. According to data by the MoPH, around 2-6% of returning travellers test positive. ''This rate of infection is not abnormally high and is consistent with rates that we would expect to see in people returning from multiple countries. "Our quarantine policy for anyone entering Qatar has been one of the strictest of its kind in the world and proved to be effective in detecting those infected and quickly isolating them and at delaying the introduction of new variants into Qatar,” said Dr. Al Khal. Also by yesterday, the National COVID-19 Vaccination Program is progressing at a fast pace and more than 1.9 million doses have been administered since the start of the program. 32965 COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered yesterday. According to the daily report by the MoPH 51.2%of the eligible population has now received at least one dose of the vaccine. 88.2% of over 60s (the most vulnerable population group) have been vaccinated with at least one dose, while 82% have received both doses. With promising data recently officials made an optimistic announcement and said that the present COVID-19 restrictions would gradually lifted from May 28, over 4 phases with each phase lasting 3 weeksMENAFN14052021000063011010ID1102079791