Photographer: Giuseppe Cacace / AFP / Getty Images
Photographer: Giuseppe Cacace / AFP / Getty Images
Dubai hopes that one of the world’s fastest vaccination programs and rapid test technology will help achieve its goal of hosting Expo 2020 this year, after the coronavirus pandemic forced a postponement.
The government is confident that vaccination programs will be successful enough to open the Expo on October 1 and says it is still possible for 25 million people to visit the city for the six-month event.
The Expo, which Dubai has been preparing for a decade, aims to be one of the biggest events in the world this year and generate billions of dollars for the government. The resurgence of the virus in recent months has complicated planning and led to questions about whether it will have to be reduced.
Tokyo, which is due to host the Olympics in July, faces similar problems, although local officials also insist on the event will go ahead.
“It is simply not realistic to change the target number yet because its factors are super fluid,” said Expo 2020 general director Reem Al Hashimi in an interview with Bloomberg TV. “We have implemented vaccines in the United Arab Emirates very aggressively, but so have many other countries around the world.”
The United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is a part, administered nearly 1.8 million doses of vaccines and has the the second highest rate of inoculations per 100 people in the world, after Israel. The country also led the tests per capita and Al Hashimi said there would be a test facility on site.
More than 39.7 million shots fired: Covid-19 Vaccine Tracker
“We hope that next October, things will be better than where we were when we had to postpone the event last April, ”said Al Hashimi.
Dubai is on schedule to host the delayed Expo 2020 this year
Dubai is also revisiting Expo 2020’s legacy as a commercial and residential space. The pandemic has aggravated the housing crisis in the emirate, the business center of the Middle East, where excess supply and economic uncertainty have driven prices down for years.
“We are not going to insist on something if it doesn’t make sense anymore,” said Al Hashimi. However, due to the site’s distinction, “we are not completely discarding it. We are taking parts of it where it makes sense, but we are also redesigning what the general legacy of the site would look like. “
The future of the site will still “be filtered out in technology because this is a 5G site,” she said.
Expo 2020 will open sustainability pavilion to the public from January 22 to April 10. The inauguration of the new pavilion is a “teaser for the national audience” and also an international one about Dubai’s idea of sustainability, said Al Hashimi.
– With the help of Desley Humphrey