Following today’s Cabinet announcement on the lifting of COVID-19 preventive measures based on the joint efforts of the concerned government institutions and the spirit of cooperation shown by citizens and residents in Qatar and the very high vaccination rates which enabled us to succeed in combating COVID-19 pandemic and ease restrictions for this stage.

The Ministry of Public Health has issued further details relating to the changes:

Wearing of face masks (effective 21 May)

The wearing of face masks is now mandatory in only the following situations:

• For all individuals within healthcare facilities (workers and visitors).
• For all individuals on public transport
• For customer service employees working indoors including cashiers, receptionists and security personnel.

The Ministry stated that people are advised to take personal responsibility to protect themselves and others (particularly those who they care for) by wearing face masks in indoor areas if they are vulnerable, have chronic conditions, have symptoms or are near people who seem to have symptoms and when in a crowded or poorly ventilated area.

Proof of vaccination or immune status (effective 21 May)

Checking of vaccination or immune status is not required anymore to enter closed indoor public areas. A green Ehteraz status is still required to enter public indoor areas.

Rapid Antigen Tests for unvaccinated individuals (effective 21 May)

The requirement to have a negative rapid antigen test for Covid-19 for unvaccinated or non-immune individuals to enter public facilities is lifted for all areas

Approvals for organizing events (effective 19 May)

Event organizers are not required anymore to seek prior approval from the Ministry of Public Health to hold events. Organizers must submit an application to the competent authority to obtain the necessary approval to hold the event and adhere to the following:

• Follow the precautionary and preventive measures stated in the events COVID-19 safety protocol on the Ministry of Public Health website.
• Prepare and submit a plan to mitigate the risk of COVID-19 in order to ensure the application of all preventive COVID-19 measures related to the event.
• Assign a person responsible for compliance with these procedures on their part.
• Sign the pledge (undertaking) to abide by the MOPH COVID-19 precautionary measures.

MOPH will work closely with MOI to conduct random inspections of events and activities to assess the organizers’ adherence to the COVID-19 preventive measures.

Changes to COVID-19 data publishing

From Sunday 22 May 2022, MOPH will cease the daily publishing of COVID-19 data on social media and switch to a weekly summary. MOPH’s website will continue to be updated daily with all the key COVID-19 data including new cases, hospitalizations, deaths, the number of vaccines administered and the number of recovered patients. The weekly COVID-19 data summary will be posted on social media every Monday, commencing Monday 30 May 2022.

The Ministry stated that the lifting of COVID-19 preventive measures comes in light of the continued low numbers of COVID-19 cases in Qatar in recent weeks, mainly due to very high vaccination rates and the great cooperation of the community. This has contributed to the success of Qatar’s efforts to combat the pandemic and therefore, most aspects of life have now returned to normal

Source: MOPH
Cover image credit: Shutterstock

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Fareeha Imtiaz

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