Qatar Coronavirus Updates (and an update about me too)

 My quarantine ended about five days ago and I was free! I did not come down with any other severe symptoms so after a rough first week things generally got better. Though I wound up with a mild-ish case COVID is no joke and it was not something I would like to repeat.

So far five of my friends have also come down with COVID and four of them had mild symptoms and recovered. One of my friends though, who is in his mid-30s, has had a much rougher time of it. Harsher symptoms, lasting much longer, lung issues, you name it.  He's on Day 16 from when symptoms started and he has been admitted to hospital twice now. He told me that things are improving and he hopes to be released from hospital in three days, he has a lung infection that they are treating but all of his other COVID symptoms are gone now. It was quite worrisome how bad he got this, and there is no reason why it couldn't have been me, or anyone for that matter. That is what is so scary about COVID, if you get it you have no idea what will happen and there is little that doctors can do except help you treat the symptoms while you fight off the virus.

Government rules for vaccination are that if you came down with COVID you have to wait 90 days before you can receive the vaccine. That means I won't get the vaccine until May. Yes I have some level of immunity in the meantime but I will not be able to travel without having to quarantine when I return. Once vaccinated I should be able to enter Qatar without quarantine. Meanwhile the age to register for the vaccine has been lowered to people 50 and older so the vaccine is slowly but surely being distributed in the country. I do not know how many people have been vaccinated now, I assume around 5% of the population, but things are progressing well. The country is still under some restrictions that were imposed a couple of weeks ago, those will likely remain for at least another month. Qatar is still at 400+ new cases a day but it has levelled off at that amount. Not great, better than the rest of the GCC but not great. 

I am hopeful that within a month enough people in Qatar will have been vaccinated that the case rates will drop significantly, and that by two months it will be back below 100 cases a day again.