Qatar's private health centres to resume services at 50% capacity

The decision will come into effect starting from Thursday, April 29th.

Qatar’s private health facilities will resume providing non-urgent services, the state news agency [QNA] reported on Wednesday, citing a cabinet statement.

The decision comes after almost a month-long suspension as part of measures to curb the spread of coronavirus infections, following a surge in daily cases.

Since the strict measures were imposed on April 9th, Qatar’s health authorities have recorded a decrease in daily cases, going from over 900 daily cases to just below 700.

However, the number of coronavirus-related fatalities have continued, with the total death toll surpassing 400 in April. Health officials have attributed this to the spread of the the more severe UK and South African strains.

According to official health ministry figures, eight people died from the novel coronavirus in December. The number decreased to three in January before shooting up to 10 in February, including an 11-year-old child.

However, things have taken a turn for the worse since then, and in just four months, the total number of deaths doubled, recording up to 200 deaths since the start of this year.

Despite this, Qatar has been making strides in its vaccination campaign, with more than half a million of the population now fully vaccinated.

On Wednesday, 690 new infections were recorded, raising the number of cases to 17,526. The country also recorded 4 new deaths, bumping the total coronavirus death toll to 445.

A total of 186,318 people have also recovered from the virus, with 1,606 recoveries recorded on Wednesday alone.

Follow Doha News on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Youtub