Qatar Economic Outlook Issue Number 13

Parts and capital goods (excl. transport)
Passenger motor cars
Transport equipment, industrial
Parts and accessories of transport equipment
Consumer goods, durable
Consumer goods, semi durable
Consumer goods, non durable
Commodities not elsewhere specified
Others
Source: Planning and Statistics Authority

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Qatar Economic Outlook 2021 - 2023 
106 
The Evolution of Covid-19 in 
Qatar
After the World Health Organization declared 
on January 30, 2020, that the Sars-Cov-2 
virus posed a serious threat to global health, 
the first known case of infection appeared in 
Qatar a month later, on 29 February. The 
number of cases in Qatar gradually began to 
increase at low rates until 11 March 2020, 
when community transmission took off with a 
jump from 24 to 262 recorded cases, which 
coincided with the WHO's declaration that the 
novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak has 
become a global pandemic. This prompted 
the Qatari government in the second half of 
March 2020 to gradually put in place 
preventive and precautionary measures. 
These efforts culminated in a meeting of the 
Supreme Committee for Crisis Management 
chaired by His Highness the Emir on 15 
March 2020, which issued a set of preventive 
and precautionary measures, and a series of 
financial and monetary decisions in support 
of economic sectors affected by the proposed 
containment measures. 
The trajectory of the spread of Covid-19 in 
Qatar during the first wave formed a 
symmetric curve during the peak period (April 
- July 2020), as Figure (2-57) indicates. The 
number of infections slowly doubled at the 
beginning, at a weekly rate of 156 cases in 
March 2020, with a maximum of 386 cases 
and a minimum of 14 cases. Then, it doubled 
further in April and May 2020, reaching its 
peak in May with a weekly rate of 8,700 
cases, with a maximum of 13,196 cases and 
a minimum of 2,142 cases. Thanks to the 
effectiveness of containment measures and 
the cooperation of citizens and residents, 
weekly cases fell at the same pace from June 
to August 2020, so that the minimum weekly 
rate fell in August to 412 cases, which is less 
than it was in April 2020 when 823 cases 
were recorded.