Qatar & Covid, Part 13: The Variants Eliminate Gains While the Vaccine Program Accelerates
A Surge in Cases, Hospitalizations, and Deaths: Tighter Restrictions Hope to Control the Variants Qatar's rumor mill accurately predicted that officials would impose more restrictions in early April to combat rising infections, hospitalizations, and deaths as the UK and South African variants took hold in the Qatari population. While many people predicted officials would impose a hard lock-down, instead, the restrictions look more like a Phase 1 or Phase 1.5 lock-down. For comparison, see my discussion of the Phase 1 re-opening beginning on May 31 here and here , and for the Phase 2 re-opening here . My guess is they will keep these restrictions in place through Eid to prevent an even greater surge in cases. Last year, officials announced that they had the virus under control in May. Then Ramadan started, and the country saw a surge of 45,000 cases. It tool officials another six weeks of hard lock-down to get the pandemic back under control. The Doha News revealed that