BAHRAIN has witnessed a 1,200 per cent surge in Covid-19 infections over the last three weeks.
The country registered 89 cases on December 19, the day it was placed on a precautionary yellow level. However, infections have spiked since then, crossing the 1,000 mark to hit 1,224 on Tuesday.
The number of active cases has also increased by more than 1,000pc during this period – from 534 on December 19 to 5,909 on Tuesday, with 13 people admitted to hospital.
More than 3,300 face mask violations were also registered during the same period.
This comes as the world grapples with the new Omicron variant of the coronavirus, though only one case has been documented in Bahrain. Meanwhile, National Taskforce to Combat Covid-19 monitoring committee head Lieutenant Colonel Dr Manaf Al Qahtani yesterday said 83pc of the population have taken the booster shot of a Covid-19 vaccine.
He also allayed concerns over the number of people under hospital care - 13, which he said was only 0.2pc of the existing cases.
“On January 4, the number of existing cases in the hospital was only 13, or 0.2pc of the total number of existing active cases, which amounted to 5,909,” he said in a statement.
“The rapid and large pace of the national vaccination campaign is evidence of societal awareness of the importance of vaccines and the booster dose, which has reinforced the country’s progress in confronting the virus.
“Eighty-three pc of the eligible population have been vaccinated with a booster shot, which contributes to protecting society from the new mutant-Omicron.”
Until yesterday, 868,327 citizens and residents have received a booster. They are among the 1,180, 996 people who have taken two doses of a vaccine, accounting for 78.68pc of the estimated 1.5 million population.
Dr Al Qahtani had earlier indicated that a surge in infections would strain medical and critical care departments, while also increasing the demand for medicines, medical supplies and treatment centres.
Prepared
However, Bahrain is prepared in all these areas, he reiterated.
“We have genetic testing capability to identify mutants and detect positive cases, an integrated medical team with all specialties ready to fight the virus, and all medicines and medical supplies,” he retweeted on Tuesday.
The country had crossed the 1,000 mark in new Covid-19 infections for the first time on March 28 (1,028) last year, which further escalated to 3,274 on May 29.
However, the numbers dropped and touched the lowest of 15 on November 9. Then the graph went up to cross the 100 mark, again, on December 18, a day before the country went into the yellow zone.
Bahrain also registered a fatality after 42 days on January 2, taking the total death toll from complications of the infection to 1,395.
The country is on yellow zone as per the traffic light system to combat Covid-19 until January 31.
Bahrain provides four free vaccines – Sinopharm, Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca-Oxford and Sputnik V – as well as booster shots. It also recently approved a second booster for people over the age of 18 who have already received three doses of Sinopharm; they can choose between Sinopharm and Pfizer-BioNTech.
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