I just got back from a one month vacation. The timing was good as a Covid wave went through Qatar over the last few weeks (I'm guessing the BA.5 variant) and it is starting to subside now. Cases are still high at over 600 a day but far less than a couple of weeks ago. First was a one week vacation in Norway with friends, primarily in the northern city of Tromso. I don't recall how we wound up deciding to go there but it was a unique trip for me. Tromso is north of the Arctic Circle, so far north that in the middle of summer the Sun does not set. I have never been that far north so it was great ..read more

As I expected the Government has put some restrictions back in place. Masks are now required at indoor public places. People were generally good at wearing masks in places like malls anyway but as it was not required there was the odd person not wearing one. I guess after two years I have gotten used to seeing everyone wearing masks, and it was a bit surprising to enter the elevator at the office recently and see someone not wearing a mask. Well, everyone has to wear masks now. The increase in restrictions is due to the rapid spread of the BA.4 and BA.5 variants of Omicron. Community cases in ..read more

Qatar has relaxed almost all restrictions now. You do need to show your Ethteraz app to enter places but mask-wearing is not enforced (many people still wear them but it's optional). Things have apparently become so mellow that the Qatar health authorities have moved to reporting cases and other information weekly instead of daily. And . . . cases are going up. Not a surprise I suppose with the looser restrictions and that highly contagious Omicron variants spreading around. From around 150 community cases a day, it went to around 240 a day (the weekly report gives the daily average) and now i ..read more

Recently got back from Eid Vacation, I'll post about that later.  Discouraged to see that cases are rising again in Qatar, I am guessing it's due to those new Omicron variants going around (I think they are called B.A.4 and B.A.5, or maybe it's the one in America, B.A.2.1.2 or something like that). After a brief period of community cases under 100 a day Qatar is now consistently back to around 120-150 cases a day. Hospitalizations are also steady at around 30 with 1-2 people in the ICU. Thankfully no deaths, I think it's been almost two months since someone died from Covid here. It also m ..read more

 [Coronavirus cases are hovering around 100 a day, some days less than a 100, others more. Hospitalizations are under 30 and only one person is in the ICU] So a new mall just had its soft opening yesterday, the new Vendome Mall in Lusail. You can look it up on Google Maps -- it is HUGE. As it was a soft opening maybe 20-25% of the shops were open but almost all of the areas of the mall were open and tons of people were roaming around to check out the mall. One thing of note is the massive fountain area in the middle of the mall. And with the mall being three stories in some areas th ..read more

It's Ramadan, the announcement was made last night.  Time for a month of fasting from first light (~4am) until sunset at around 6pm.  Spent the last week decaffinating, slowing weaning myself off of coffee, otherwise I would get a massive headache the first day.  It was also weird putting food and water on my nightstand so that I could eat something quickly at 3:30am before going back to sleep. It will be nice to enjoy Ramadan festivities again, due to Covid I was home for the last two Ramadans, either because of lockdown or because I was keeping myself safe by limiting how much ..read more

Over the last two weeks I watched, waiting for the numbers to steadily drop below 100, maybe even below 50 cases a day, but it didn't happen. On average there are around 120-150 community cases a day and it has just stayed there. I'm not sure why it has levelled off there. The good news is the hospitalizations are minimal, now there are fewer than 30 people in hospital and only one in the ICU. No one has died of Covid in the last two weeks.  With that the Government has relaxed most restrictions. Masks should still be worn indoors, and you need to show the Ehteraz tracking app to go into ..read more

Cases are now back to a level before the Omicron wave, today there were 116 community cases, and it has been under 200 a day for the last week. There is still the odd death, about four this week, but there's now only 26 people in hospital and 10 in the ICU, a far cry from two months ago when people were swarming testing centres and hospitals were filling up. Qatar has announced further relaxing of restrictions, both for travel and while in the country. Masks are still required indoors, and the Ehteraz tracking app will need to be shown to enter buildings, but otherwise there are few restrictio ..read more

Today there were 309 community cases. Hospitalizations are WAY down, and now only 39 people are in hospital, of which 28 are in ICU. At the peak of the Omicron wave over 700 were hospitalized. Looks like the worst of the Omicron wave is now over. The deaths continue though, sometimes 1 or 2 a day, occasionally none. Given how long people can linger in the ICU with Covid pneumonia it'll be a few weeks yet before most of them leave the ICU.  Sometimes I lurk on a Reddit sub-group called HermanCainAward and see the stories of people hospitalized with Covid. Some of them are in the hospital f ..read more

Just a quick post. Yesterday there were 532 community cases and only 114 people are currently in hospital. Unfortunately the deaths lag the hospitalizations and most days 1-2 people are dying still. Compare that to the US though, if Qatar was having the same death rate that the US is having right now Qatar would be reporting 25-30 deaths a day. That's never happened, even at the peak of Delta the most number of deaths Qatar reported in a day was 10. In Mississippi, the worst-hit State and with a population similar to Qatar, they are averaging around 40-50 deaths a day at the moment. With the d ..read more