CORONAVIRUS infections in the country have hit a new high with 3,459 cases registered on Wednesday - the highest since the outbreak of the pandemic in 2019.
The previous record was 3, 274 cases witnessed on May 29 last year.
The new year has seen a staggering spike in daily cases, mirroring the global situation, with the highly contagious Omicron variant taxing healthcare infrastructure.
Infections have surged by more than 450 per cent since the beginning of this month – the New Year day recorded 615 cases which has shot up to 3,274 on Wednesday, a 462.4pc hike.
Furthermore, in the last eight days, since the daily numbers crossed the 2,000-mark on January 12, cases have been averaging at 2,600 every day.
The number of active cases and those under hospitalisation have also increased. On Wednesday, there were 24,690 active cases with 75 admitted to hospital, of which 10 are under critical care.
Omicron, according to experts, is the fastest-spreading virus known to humankind. Ever since its detection in South Africa last month, the new variant has rapidly spread in countries across the globe.
Meanwhile, the test positivity rate in the country shot up to 15.32 per cent on Wednesday, surpassing the highest of 11.8pc reported in June last year.
Test positivity rate – or Covid-19 per cent-positive rate – is the percentage of positive cases from daily tests conducted in a country/state. It indicates the possibility of a person contracting the infection from his/her community.
According to John Hopkins Centre for Health Security senior scholar Dr Amesh Adalja, when the test positive rate is low in an area, the chance of a person running into someone with the virus in a public place is much lesser.
Test positivity dropped to less than 1pc in July after averaging at 5pc in February, 4.5 in March and 6.3pc in April, before spiking to 11.4 in May. By end of June it had dropped to 2.48pc.
The rate assumes significance as it indicates the level in which the country could be placed as per the four-tier traffic-light mechanism to assess the virus spread.
According to the system introduced by the National Taskforce for Combating Covid-19 in July, when the average percentage of positive Covid-19 cases exceeds eight over any three-day period, Bahrain could go into the red-level clampdown.
Meanwhile the country witnessed one more fatality from Covid-19 complications last week – on January 15, taking the total death toll to 1, 398.
Bahrain, as of Wednesday, recorded 317,384 infections including active cases, fatalities and 291,296 recoveries. This is 20pc of the estimated 1.5 million population, which means more than 80pc of citizens and residents have successfully managed to shield themselves from the infection.
The success has been attributed to Bahrain’s robust TTT - Trace, Test, and Treat – policy, which tracks infected people and their contacts and helps curtail its spread.
The country has also adopted a vigorous vaccination campaign with choices of doses open to citizens and residents aged three years and above.
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