Community transmission is still at ~150-170 a day, worse than a month ago but it seems to have levelled off and thankfully is not getting any worse. I was shocked to see what was happening in the UAE, I think in December they got some sort of safe travel designation from the UK, so people could go from the UK to the UAE and return without going into quarantine. Now the UAE is reporting 3,000+ cases of COVID a day! On a per-capita basis that's around six to seven times more than Qatar! The UK has since dropped them from the safe travel designation and now UK travelers have to quarantine. The UAE is now reporting 4-6 deaths a day and I expect it will get worse in the coming weeks. Good thing Qatar did not lessen travel restrictions. In fact the quarantine-hotel restrictions have been extended until May. I'm not sure if that applies if you get vaccinated though.
As for the vaccine Qatar has now lowered the age to get the vaccine to 60. The Ministry of Health has also started an online registration process for everyone else, you can register and when they have vaccine available for you they will contact you. I figure when the next shipment arrives I will be able to get my first dose, I just don't know when that will be.
People have been making travel plans in anticipation of being vaccinated but I haven't really thought of that yet. It'll be at least a month from when I receive the first dose before I can travel so we are looking at April or maybe even May. Got time to sort out what to do.
The opening of the border with Saudi has not appeared to create much of a change in Qatar. Many Qataris went into Saudi to visit relatives, property they had left behind, go to Mecca, but not a lot of people coming into Qatar, I assume because they would have to quarantine first. Qataris I spoke to are a bit cautious about the developments, they welcome it but at the same time most have no plans to visit the blockading countries for a while yet, especially the UAE, who they especially do not trust. From word of mouth I heard that Qataris who have gone to Saudi have not experienced any troubles. I haven't heard of anyone going to Bahrain or Egypt yet.
Flights are now available to the blockading countries (maybe not Bahrain yet but that will be soon), which is great news. I have Bahraini friends and for them to get to Bahrain, normally a 25-minute flight, would take 5-8 hours as they had to go to Kuwait or Oman first then board a flight to Bahrain from there. It was also WAY more expensive to do that, typically triple the price of the Doha-Bahrain flight, or more!
And finally everyone is waiting with baited breath to see what other craziness is going to happen out of the USA. I mean, if what is happening there was a Hollywood script it would be rejected as being too outlandish and unrealistic.
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