"2 Mideast countries, world's top virus rates per population", 23 Jul 2020

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...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. 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.