Two Middle Eastern countries among the world's top virus rates per population
Dubai: The small, neighbouring sheikhdoms of Bahrain and Qatar have the world's highest per-capita rates of coronavirus infections.
In the two Mideast countries, COVID-19 epidemics initially swept undetected through camps housing healthy and young foreign labourers, studies now show.
In Qatar, a new study found that nearly 60% of those testing positive showed no symptoms at all, calling into question the usefulness of mass temperature checks meant to stop the infected from mingling with others. In Bahrain, authorities put the asymptomatic figure even higher, at 68%.
These results reflect both the wider problems faced by Gulf Arab countries reliant on cheap foreign labour and their relative success in tracking their COVID-19 epidemics, given their oil wealth and authoritarian governments.
Aggressive testing boosted the number of confirmed cases as health officials in Bahrain and Qatar targeted vulnerable labour camps and neighbourhoods, where migrant workers from Asia sleep, eat and live up to dozen people per room.
This is why globally we failed to control, I think, the infection because simply the response has been focused on trying to find cases and isolate them and quarantine their contacts, said Laith Abu-Raddad, a disease researcher at Weill Cornell Medicine Qatar.
Now, if most people getting the infection are actually spreading the infection without even knowing it, this really does not actually work.
The island kingdom of Bahrain and the energy-rich peninsular nation of Qatar have been locked in a yearslong political dispute that's ended travel and trade between two countries only kilometres (miles) apart.
Yet similarities abound in these US-allied nations Bahrain hosts the US Navy's 5th Fleet while Qatar hosts the forward headquarters of the US military's Central Command at its sprawling Al-Udeid Air Base.
Both rely heavily on foreign labour, whether white-collar workers in banks or blue-collar labourers scaling scaffolding on construction sites. Qatar in particular embarked on a massive construction boom ahead of hosting the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
The virus found a home in the cramped quarters that foreign labourers live in while trying to save money to send back home.
In Qatar, nearly 30% of those found infected were from India, while 18% were Nepalis and 14% were Bangladeshis, according to a study by Abu-Raddad and others.
Of the over 6,000 contact trace cases that Bahrain published, more than 2,600 involved Indian nationals, while 1,310 were Bahrainis and 1,260 were Bangladeshi. More than 400 came from Pakistan, with a similar number from Nepal.
Those figures in Bahrain and Qatar likely track across the wider Gulf Cooperation Council, the regional bloc that also includes Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, all of which rely on a vast foreign labour pool already sickened and trapped by the virus.
Though other GCC nations haven't broken down coronavirus cases by nationalities, a recently published article in the Oman Medical Journal said that of the sultanate's first 1,304 cases of the virus, 29% of patients were Indian, 20% were Bangladeshi and 10% were Pakistani.
Their living conditions likely make them more at risk of contracting the virus, as Bahrainis and Qataris usually live in single-family homes. The spread mirrors the contagion seen in boarding schools and other places where people live together in communal spaces.
Qatar, with a population of 2.8 million people, has reported more than 107,000 cases of the coronavirus and 163 deaths. Bahrain, with a population of 1.6 million, has reported more than 37,000 cases and 130 deaths.
Strikingly, the mortality rate in the two countries remains low, with Qatar at 0.15% and Bahrain at 0.34%. The US mortality rate is around 3.6%.
Both Abu-Raddad and Ghina Mumtaz, a disease researcher at the American University of Beirut, attribute that in part to the younger population of the labourers in both Bahrain and Qatar.
If you look at the infection-fatality rate, you will realise that it's not as scary as if you look only at the figure of the number of cases per capita, Mumtaz said.
In response to questions from The Associated Press about their outbreaks, both Bahrain and Qatar attributed their high case numbers to having some of the world's best per capita testing rates.
Qatar also compared itself to Singapore, a southeast Asia city-state that similarly had virus outbreaks among its migrant labourers.
Bahrain said its government's pre-emptive testing strategy means that the vast majority of cases are identified prior to the development of symptoms.
Of the Bahrain contract trace cases, over 2,000 came as part of a campaign to obtain random samples from the community, the database showed. More than 1,300 were foreign workers tested while the area they lived in faced mandatory quarantine orders.
The high number of asymptomatic individuals in both countries means that once the virus reaches a new population, it greatly raises the risk of people unknowingly spreading it while feeling fine.
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Ajit Pawar death: ‘Zero FIR’ registered in Bengaluru
Bengaluru (PTI): The Bengaluru police have registered a case related to Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar’s death in a plane crash in Baramati on a complaint by his nephew Rohit Pawar, who has alleged that the tragedy was a result of a "larger criminal conspiracy” to eliminate his uncle.
Pawar was killed on January 28 when a Bombardier Learjet 45 aircraft, operated by VSR Ventures Private Limited, crashed near Baramati Airport, Pune, Maharashtra.
The aircraft was on a flight from Mumbai to Baramati and was carrying Ajit Pawar and four others on board, who were all killed in the crash.
Based on the complaint, the High Grounds police registered ‘Zero FIR’, which can be registered at any police station, irrespective of where the offence was committed.
“We have registered a zero FIR and transferred it to the Maharashtra police for investigation,” a senior police officer told PTI.
Rohit Pawar said he had previously approached Marine Drive Police Station on February 25 and Baramati Police Station on February 26 without an FIR being registered, “and was subsequently informed by Pune CID that they were examining only the Accidental Death Report angle”.
“The complainant contends that the incident was a result of a larger criminal conspiracy aimed at eliminating the Deputy Chief Minister,” the complaint read.
Rohit claimed that there were “systematic violations” of aviation safety regulations, deliberate falsification of records, gross negligence in maintenance and operations, and a pattern of conduct which led to the incident.
According to him, on February 24, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in its safety audit report “declared and admitted” that aircraft of the VSR Company were “negligent, not airworthy” and therefore were grounded as part of the DGCA investigation in the crash of the charter plane.
He alleged that the aircraft VT-SSK was being operated in systematic violation of mandatory safety standards.
At the time of the crash, the aircraft had accumulated approximately 4,915 flight hours, leaving only about 85 hours before the mandatory engine Time Before Overhaul ('TBO') threshold of 5,000 hours was reached, he charged.
“Despite operating dangerously close to this limit, VSR continued to deploy the aircraft for commercial operations, placing the crew and passengers at heightened risk of mechanical malfunction,” said Rohit Pawar.
He suspected that the aircraft may have infact accumulated flight hours in excess of 8,000 hours, far beyond its certified safe operational limits.
“This deliberate suppression and misrepresentation of flight data amounts to falsification of statutory maintenance records and constitutes a serious violation of aviation safety regulations as enumerated in the complaint,” Rohit Pawar said.
He charged that “this pattern of falsification” allowed continued commercial operation of a fundamentally unsafe aircraft.
“The DGCA's certification records for aircraft VT-SSK disclose procedurally anomalous and potentially fabricated documentation. The Airworthiness Certificate for the aircraft was issued on December 16, 2021, while the Aircraft Registration Certificate was only issued on 27th December 2022, a full year later.”
Standard aviation procedure requires that registration precede airworthiness certification.
“This reversal of prescribed sequence suggests either gross administrative failure or deliberate manipulation of records at the DGCA level,” Rohit said.
He also alleged that the Chief Pilot Sumit Kapoor, who commanded the aircraft on the day of the crash, had a documented history of alcohol-related violations, leading to a three-year suspension of his flying privileges by the DGCA.
“The original crew scheduled for the flight, Captain Sahil Madan and Co-pilot Yash, were last-minute replaced by Kapoor and Co-pilot Shambhavi Pathak, purportedly because the original crew was 'stuck in traffic' at 6.30 am. This explanation is implausible given the time of day,” Rohit stated.
Rohit said Ajit Pawar had originally planned to travel to Pune by road on the evening of January 27 with a full motorcade arranged.
“He remained in Mumbai without disclosed reason. The flight itself was delayed by seventy minutes from its original 7 am departure, with no credible explanation provided. The crew initially requested the safer Runway 29 and then, two minutes later, switched to Runway 11, the more dangerous tabletop runway without any apparent operational justification,” Rohit alleged.
In the final recorded seconds of the flight, co-pilot Shambhavi Pathak said something while Kapoor was entirely silent.
This complete absence of response from the commanding pilot in a life-threatening emergency is consistent with either incapacitation due to alcohol or deliberate inaction.
