Oman’s infections drop more than 60 per cent after travel restrictions
Oman’s daily increases in Covid-19 cases have dropped by more than 60 per cent after a two-week lockdown that ended on Friday, the health ministry said.
The ministry reported 1,380 new infections on July 24, a day before the committee overseeing Oman’s pandemic response banned travel between regions and imposed a nightly movement ban from 7pm to 6am.
Yesterday, a day after the travel ban was lifted, the health ministry reported only 290 new cases over the previous 24 hours.
“We see now an encouraging result after the end of the regional travel restriction with more than 60 per cent reduction of infected cases. However, we still need people to take the usual precautions and adhere to the rules,” the ministry said.
The evening restrictions have been extended for a week until August 15 but now begin at 9pm and end at 5am.
The southern Dhofar region remains cut off from the rest of the country for now because “the number of infections there is still a concern”, according to the health ministry.
Dhofar, home to the resort city of Salalah, is the most popular tourist destination in Oman. The loss in tourism income this summer is estimated by the government at 80 million rials (Dh793m). The majority of Dhofar’s tourists are domestic visitors, Emiratis and foreigners working in the UAE.
The number of Covid-19 infections in Oman now stands at 81,357, while seven deaths reported on Saturday raised the sultanate’s toll from the pandemic to 509.
The number of recoveries rose by 1,401 to 73,481, leaving 494 patients in hospital including 173 in intensive care, health ministry said.
The health ministry figures revealed a recovery rate of 90.3 per cent among Covid-19 patients in Oman, far higher than the global average. Globally, 12,634,583 patients had recovered out of 19,687,355 cases as of Saturday evening, according to a tally by Worldometer, giving a recovery rate of just 64 per cent.
About 600 medical staff have contracted the virus so far but the country has flown in retired doctors and nurses from abroad, mainly from India, to help fight the pandemic.
Oman’s latest infection figures reflect a downward trend seen among GCC states in recent weeks.
Saudi Arabia, which has the highest number of cases in the Gulf region outside of Iran, reported 1,469 new cases as of yesterday, down from daily figures of 2,000-plus a fortnight ago.
The Saudi health ministry also said 37 patients died since Friday, taking its Covid-19 fatalities to 3,130 and overall cases to 287,262.
Recoveries rose by 1,492 to 250,440, with 33,692 cases still active, the ministry said.
In Kuwait, cases rose by 472 to 71,199, while the number of deaths increased by three to 474.
The country’s health ministry said 320 of the new cases were Kuwaitis and 152 residents.
Ministry spokesman Abdullah Al Sanad said there were 7,919 Covid-19 patients receiving medical treatment including 125 in intensive care. The number of recoveries rose by 476 to 62,806.
In Qatar, the health ministry reported 267 new cases and two more fatalities since Friday, raising its coronavirus death toll to 182.
The ministry said 296 patients recovered, taking the recoveries tally to 109,438.
There are 3,030 active cases, including 78 people in intensive care.
Bahrain reported 418 new cases, 331 recoveries and three deaths late on Friday.
Meanwhile, Iran’s daily death toll fell to its lowest in six weeks at 132, with the number of new cases at a monthlow of 2,125.
Iran now has 18,264 fatalities from 324,692 infections since it reported its first cases in late February.