Ramadan has started! And a Coronavirus Update.

The announcement has been made, Ramadan is officially here. One thing I haven't mentioned yet is preparing for Ramadan by slowly getting yourself off of the caffeine. When fasting you are not allowed to drink anything from first light until sunset, including water and of course any tea or coffee. Some people forget about that and then on Ramadan go cold turkey from caffeine, which means splitting headaches. I have been slowly reducing the caffeine over the last two weeks, easy enough to do when you're just in the apartment all day, and today it was one weak coffee. I should be fine tomorrow.

It will be a struggle to just sit at home all day and not eat or drink anything. Literally sitting on the couch watching videos or reading I guess. I can't even do any vigorous exercise since I can't drink water. Let's see how it goes.


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Qatar is now averaging over 600 cases of coronavirus everyday. Total cases is at 7,764. Sadly one more person died, bringing the total to 10.

In terms of per capita cases I think Qatar is probably 6th or 7th in the world now but I think it is due to more diligent testing by the Government. If someone is found with the virus they find all contacts and test everyone so I think they are finding a lot of cases where the person wasn't showing any symptoms. If it's a worker who gets sick then they test everyone in the accommodation, which could be hundreds. I am guessing that's why the detection rate is so high. As we know, there is a lot of underreporting in Western countries, either due to lack of testing or only testing people who go to the hospital, so a lot of cases get missed from official figures. I have more faith in the accuracy of Qatar's figures than places like Italy or the US. So while the number of cases in Qatar is high it might not be as alarming as what is happening in other places. Still worrisome though. The Qatari Government might be concerned as well, it has now made wearing masks compulsory to go to grocery stores and other places.

I spoke with a Qatari friend of mine who told me that during a news conference given by the Government they pointed out most of the cases were either from workers, where mass testing is taking place, or from Qataris that are in quarantine as they have returned from abroad. There does not appear to be a lot of "free-roaming" cases, especially now that the Government doesn't allow Qataris returning from abroad to "self-quarantine" but we'll see how things are over the next few days. There were also some arrests of Qataris who were violating rules about gathering in groups, the Government is not playing around.



Ramadan Kareem everyone! Stay safe.