The strategy behind Bahrain’s COVID-19 success

The strategy behind Bahrain’s COVID-19 success

LONDON: The Kingdom of Bahrain, like the rest of the world, has been convulsed by a year of lockdowns, uncertainty, and painful "” but necessary "” sacrifices made by and on behalf of its people. But now, more than 18 months since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged in China and engulfed nearly every country on the planet, the small Gulf state appears to have turned the tide against the virus. Bahrain was the first country in the world to approve the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine and begin rolling it out, and is currently behind only the UAE and Malta in terms of vaccine doses administered per capita. While more than 1,300 people have died in Bahrain from COVID-19, in real terms, per person, that number is far below much of the rest of the world. Dr. Waleed Al-Manea, Bahrain's undersecretary of the Ministry of Health, told Arab News that he attributes this relative success to one clear strategy that the government has pursued throughout the pandemic: transparency. "Since the start, we have adopted a strategy of transparency "” that's been very important to us," he said. "With that transparency, we promised ourselves that we would work with facts rather than