Covid-19: Occupancy at field hospitals in Oman nearing capacity

Muscat: The occupancy rate at field hospitals for Covid-19 patients is currently 95 per cent and the rate is 100 per cent in High  Dependency Units (HDU), where there are critical cases suffering from respiratory failure, Director of the Field Hospital for Covid-19 Patients, Dr. Nabil Al Lawati said in an interview with Oman TV.

Dr Zakaria bin Yahya Al Balushi, an infectious disease consultant at Royal hospital said: "64 per cent of the patients currently in intensive care at the Royal Hospital are under the age of 60, and this may be due to the fact that the national campaign for immunisation against Covid-19 targeted the elderly in the first phase."

Dr. Al Lawati said, “The vaccine is our golden opportunity to get out of this pandemic, and the misinformation spread on social media is still the reason for some reluctance to take the vaccine, and the AstraZeneca vaccine that Britain manufactures and benefits from on a large scale is an example of this." Dr. Al-Balushi added, "The duration of the effectiveness of the vaccines is monitored. For example, the results conducted on the trials of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines indicate that the effectiveness of the vaccine exceeds 6 months, while the acquired immunity ranges from 3 to 6 months and then begins to decline."

He further said, “Infection of people who received the vaccine is possible, but at a much lower rate than those who did not receive the vaccine, and the vaccination itself protects people from exposure to serious illness or death."