Qatar Coronavirus Updates -- Cases Decreasing but Government Concerned

Daily cases in Qatar are slowly receding, today had 693. Quite the change from not so long ago when >2,000 was happening. Three more deaths today for a total of 113. There are still over 200 people in ICUs in the country so the death toll will continue to rise.

While the total daily case rate is decreasing the Government has noticed a disturbing trend -- the rate of cases amongst Qataris and white-collar expat workers is actually increasing, not decreasing. There is also an increase in family infections, with a person getting infected then infecting family members. The Government has determined that this is primarily due to people socializing or going to majlises and not taking proper safety precautions. I also saw pictures in social media of crowded beaches last weekend (not British or Florida-level crowded, but tons of people went to the beach).

July 1st is Phase 2 of reducing lockdown restrictions and due to the issues around local transmission the Government has announced they are scaling back some of the planned liftings. The main difference was to allow gatherings of up to 10 people, that has now been reduced to five people in an attempt to curb people meeting in majlis or otherwise socializing. I think the June 15 Phase 1 restrictions lifting led some people to think everything is cool and can be back to normal. This isn't over folks!


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July 1st also marks when the EU will release its list of countries that people can visit the EU from, due to those countries having low Covid rates. It has received a lot of coverage because leaks to the press indicated that the United States was definitely NOT on the list. Canada should be though.

Given that one criteria is countries have to have Covid rates similar to the EU there is no way Qatar or any other Middle East country will be on the list. By my estimate Qatar would have to average, over a two week period, fewer than 430 cases a day. Not gonna happen. The EU will revisit the list every two weeks. I doubt Qatar will be on the list by July 15th, but August 1st is a possibility, we'll see. August 15th is a realistic target.



I am willing to bet that EU list will become the standard for most other nations as well, which means going to countries like Canada will also be unlikely.