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Daily new cases of coronavirus (Covid-19) hit the lowest number in 12 months much to the relief of medics and the public at large.
The Health Ministry revealed that the country witnessed only 48 new cases on Tuesday, alongside 65 recoveries, and no fatalities.
The country also recorded a staggering recovery rate which stands at 99.95 per cent as of yesterday. There are 733 active cases of infection currently while critical cases are as low as five and those receiving treatment number six.
Cases recorded a daily average of 628 last September while its stands at 88 this year. Compare that to the highest average of daily cases in the last year recorded in May this year, a staggering 2,052 cases, followed by April with 1,083 cases.
The average had dropped to 356 in October last year and dipped to 163 in November. It went up marginally to 184 in December and leaped to 420 in January, 690 in February and 708 in March following a sudden spike in cases. In July this year the average daily cases dropped to 108 and in August it was 105.
Fatalities have also been on the decline since July which recorded 32 deaths from complications of the virus to four last month and one till date this month – which was recorded last Thursday.
The total death toll stands at 1,389. June remains the month with the highest death tally of 372, which followed May with 334 deaths. April saw 125 fatalities, March 72, February 74 and January 23.
Last year saw a total of 352 deaths from March 16 which registered the first fatality from the virus. The 65-year-old Bahraini woman, who was also the first Covid-19 fatality in the GCC, had contracted the virus while outside the country and had underlying chronic health issues.
Health Ministry family physician Dr Hind Al Sindi said the ‘right strategy’ adopted by Bahrain had paved the way to the positive achievements in terms of Covid-19 parameters.
“As the Health Ministry slogan of ‘protection and commitment’ – ‘protection’ comes from the encouragement to take vaccination and registration for booster doses and ‘commitment’ comes from the social responsibility towards protecting oneself and others in the community,” said Dr Al Sindi.
“Bahrain has taken the right examples from leading countries in the world on strategies and, as a citizen, I am proud to be a part of this achievement. When we stand at low numbers of all Covid-19 parameters it is crucial for the country to move on.”
Meanwhile, the kingdom is also closing in on ‘herd immunity’ with almost 75pc of its population vaccinated against Covid-19.
‘Herd immunity’, also known as ‘population immunity’, is the indirect protection from an infectious disease that happens when a population is immune either through vaccination or immunity developed through previous infection.
Experts estimate that ‘herd immunity’ would require around 80-90pc of the population to have Covid-19 immunity.
Bahrain would require to cover an estimated 1,200,000 people with two doses of a Covid-19 vaccine to achieve it.
The national vaccination campaign, launched on December 17 last year, has covered 1,114,621 people with two doses of a vaccine as of Tuesday. This accounts for 74.3pc of the total population of 1.5 million; 1,164,311 people (77.62pc) have taken at least one dose of a vaccine.
The numbers account for 88.43pc of the eligible population fully vaccinated and 92.37pc vaccinated with at least one dose. The estimated eligible population stands at 1.26m, and includes everyone aged above 12 and children aged three to 11 who have underlying health conditions.
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