Questions and Answers: How is Qatar fighting the COVID case, death? Coronavirus pandemic with a new wave News

Doha, Qatar – More than 200,000 people in Qatar have tested positive for the coronavirus since the pandemic began last year.

The country has also reported 428 deaths as of April 26, including 150 in the last 30 days, following a rise in daily cases and a death toll.

It has given more than 1.4 million doses of the vaccine, and just over 19% of the population has received two doses, according to officials.

Qatar announced earlier this month Narrower restrictions related to COVID-19 among the rise in cases in recent weeks.

Al Jazeera spoke with Dr. Abdullatif Al Khal, chairman of the National Strategic Health Group on COVID-19 and head of infectious diseases at Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC), to downplay the reason for the line and the authorities ’strategies. the second wave.

Al Jazeera: Qatar exacerbated cases in February and mediocre ones in March. The number then went up. What is the reason behind the nail?

Abdullatif Al Khal: As in many countries around the world, we are now experiencing another wave of the virus.

The rise was due to the spread of strains in the UK and South Africa. The UK variant has been in the community since March. Despite the strict quarantine policy in force for all travelers, the South African variant began in the community in April.

Both of these strains are more infectious and cause more serious diseases than the original strain and we believe they have had a significant impact on the increase in COVID cases.

Al Jazeera: Stricter restrictions were announced earlier this month. Given that the point had to be made earlier?

Al Khal: Qatar has acted proactively throughout the pandemic. Despite managing to keep the virus under control in the last quarter of 2020, Qatar maintained some strict policies to prevent a second wave.

The quarantine policy for anyone entering Qatar has been one of the most demanding types in the world and has proven effective in introducing new variants to delay Qatar, causing these new tensions in many countries around the world. In addition, we continued to maintain preventive measures to prevent the spread of the virus.

The key principle of our COVID-19 strategy is to develop proactively. At the beginning of the year, as we saw a steady increase in the number of new cases on a daily basis, we acted quickly to implement further restrictions in early February. Once we identified the UK variant, we moved quickly to increase the restrictions. The latest development of this South African variant circulation pandemic led us in early April to move quickly again to increase restrictions.

Al Jazeera: Calls have been made another lock. Is Qatar going to do something similar to what was seen last year?

Al Khal: The last set of restrictions imposed on April 9 was the third set of restrictions imposed this year. Although economic factors are important, these decisions are always taken as a priority for the health of the population.

When we announced it, we were committed to the final restrictions within at least three weeks. We have 18 days for restrictions and continue to monitor the data closely to see the impact of the restrictions.

Although it is too early to make firm forecasts, the data show that hospital admission rates have leveled off and there has also been a small drop in recent days. This is very gratifying and is the first indication that the combination of restrictions and the spread of vaccines works to stop the spread of the virus.

However, if the data showed signs of an increase in the number of cases, then we would not be hesitant to increase the restrictions.

Al Jazeera: Children’s COVID cases are on the rise now. How worrying is this and that as a result of the schools being open?

Al Khal: It is clear that the South African and UK variant affects people younger than the original strain. It is very worrying when children are affected by the virus, but so far we have seen a very small proportion of children become seriously ill due to COVID-19.
Our policy on schools has always been very strict – although cases remained low in the last quarter of 2020, schools operated with a confusing learning system.

This ensured a reduction in the number of classes in schools and helped to implement preventive measures. All teachers, administrative staff and almost all children must wear masks while maintaining their social distance and ‘Ehteraz’ [official contact-tracing app] and when temperature controls are made on entering the school, the schools set up a bubble system where classes are not mixed with each other.

We have also established a strict quarantine policy for all confirmed and suspected cases (children and teachers). We also prioritized the vaccination of teachers and school staff and we have a very high percentage of vaccination within this group.

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– Ministry of Public Health (@MOPHQatar) April 25, 2021

Al Jazeera: Overall, has Qatar been more successful in cases and deaths compared to the rest of the world?

Al Khal: The entire health sector has played an important role in Qatar’s comprehensive measures to protect its population from COVID-19. Three key areas of our strategy have been: expanding health capacity, a proactive public health strategy, and protecting the most vulnerable population.

We significantly increased hospital capacity from 2,250 beds before the pandemic to more than 3,500 hospitals today.

In addition to the thousands of isolation beds that are infected with COVID-19 coronavirus but are not sick from being in close care.

Our proactive public health measures, including testing and tracing strategy, allowed us to quickly identify positive cases and ensure medical care as soon as possible before symptoms worsened.

A key factor in keeping the death rate low has been the way we protect the most vulnerable members of our society.

We also provided outreach and education programs to these at-risk groups to inform them of the actions needed to keep them safe during the pandemic.

Al Jazeera: Are we witnessing KOVID fatigue on the streets of Qatar? How hard is it for neighbors to realize that it’s hard to follow safety rules and follow instructions in these tough times?

Al Khal: People in Qatar and around the world have been living under the threat of COVID-19 for more than 14 months and the Qatari community in general has acted very responsibly. Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have been constantly providing information and advice on how to protect ourselves and others from the virus.

The successful removal of the first wave of the virus in 2020 was a joint effort by government measures and a commitment by citizens to follow them.

The spread of the vaccine has shown that people understand the importance of virus protection and that vaccines are the best way to overcome this pandemic, but the best results are achieved when vaccines are combined with adherence to standards. preventive measures.

The spread of vaccines has been very well received by the public and we certainly don’t see much doubt about the vaccine that was feared around the world.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length