Qatar''s campaign nears one million fully vaccinated people

(MENAFN - The Peninsula) With recent expansions to the COVID-19 vaccination programme implemented by the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH), Qatar is likely to reach the one million figure of fully vaccinated people in the country soon. So far 928,979 people have received both doses of the vaccine under the National COVID-19 Vaccination Program. The vaccination rollout has sped up over the past days with over 40,000 vaccines being administered per day. According to data released by the Ministry yesterday, as many as 40,058 vaccine doses were administered in the past 24 hours. A total of 2,190,807 vaccine doses had been administered by Thursday. At present, 55.6% of the eligible population of the country has received at least one dose of the vaccine. 89.8% of over 60s (the most vulnerable population group) have been vaccinated with at least one dose, while 84.3% have received both doses. 64.8% of people over 40 years of age are also fully vaccinated against COVID-19. At present, all people aged 30 and above are eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. Parents can also register their children aged 12 to 15 years to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. With the increase in number of people vaccinated, the number of people tested for COVID-19 has also increased. A total of 17,127 people were tested yesterday. Of them, 3,842 were tested for the first time. Among the total number of people tested, only 313 new COVID-19 cases were found — 1.8% of people tested. 208 of the new cases were from the community and the rest from travellers returning from overseas. Meanwhile, another 522 people recovered from COVID-19 yesterday, bringing the total number of cases recovered in Qatar to 209,773. In addition, the Ministry also announced one new death from COVID-19. The deceased, 62, had no history of any chronic disease and was receiving the necessary medical care. The Ministry in its daily COVID-19 report said, ''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. ''However, it is still important to be cautious as the second wave is not yet over and there are still two highly contagious and highly virulent strains of the virus that are actively circulating in the community.” The Ministry also recently announced phased easing of COVID-19 restrictions from May 28MENAFN21052021000063011010ID1102110098