FILE - In this May 14, 2019 file photo, two people take in the sea breeze at the Corniche waterfront promenade in Doha, Qatar. The small, neighboring sheikhdoms of Bahrain and Qatar have the world’s highest per capita rates of coronavirus infections in the world. In the two Mideast countries, COVID-19 epidemics initially swept undetected through camps housing healthy and young foreign laborers. In Qatar, a new study found that nearly 60% of those testing positive showed no symptoms at all. In Bahrain, authorities put the number of asymptomatic spreaders of the virus even higher, at 68%. DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The small, neighboring 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 laborers, 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 labor 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 labor camps and neighborhoods, 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.” (...) Both rely heavily on foreign labor, whether white-collar workers in banks or blue-collar laborers 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 laborers 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.
