The government’s Dubai Media Office says the sheikh is doing everything possible to deal with the pandemic, although it has repeatedly refused to answer questions from The Associated Press about its hospital capacity.
“After a year of controlling the pandemic, we can safely say that the current situation is under control and we have plans to increase the capacity of the health system if there is a need for an increase,” the document said.
However, Nasser al-Shaikh, a former Dubai chief financial officer, made a different assessment on Thursday on Twitter and asked authorities to take control of an increasing number of cases.
“The leadership bases its decisions on the team’s recommendations, the wrong recommendations that endanger human souls and negatively affect our society,” he wrote, adding that “our economy requires responsibility.”
Dubai, known for its long-distance carrier Emirates, the tallest building in the world and its beaches and bars, in July became one of the first travel destinations to describe itself as open for business. The move stopped bleeding from its important tourism and real estate sectors after blockades and curfews affected its economy.
As tourism resumed, the number of coronavirus cases reported daily grew slowly, but most remained stable during the fall.
But then New Year’s Eve came – a big draw for travelers from countries paralyzed by the virus, who were partying without masks in bars and yachts. In the past 17 days, the United Arab Emirates as a whole has reported record daily numbers of coronavirus cases as queues at test facilities in Dubai grow.
In Israel, more than 900 travelers returning from Dubai have been infected with the coronavirus, according to the military, who perform contact tracking. The returnees created a chain of infections that reached more than 4,000 people, the Israeli military told the AP.
Tens of thousands of Israelis have migrated to the United Arab Emirates since the two countries normalized relations in September. The Israeli Ministry of Health expert, Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis, was quoted on Channel 13 TV as complaining in a call with other officials that a few weeks of travel were more deadly than decades without relations with the Arab nation.
Since the end of December, Israel has required those coming from the United Arab Emirates to be quarantined for two weeks. Later, Israel closed its main international airport by the end of the month due to the increase in cases.
In the UK, tabloids spread pictures of British bikini-clad influencers partying in Dubai while the country struggled against roadblocks trying to control the virus. Britain closed a travel corridor to Dubai in mid-January that allowed travelers to skip quarantine because of what has been described as a significant acceleration in the number of cases imported from the United Arab Emirates.
“International travel, at this time, should not happen unless it is absolutely necessary,” Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the BBC this week. “There are no parties in Paris or weekends in Dubai. This does not happen and, in most cases, it is against the law. “
Meanwhile, mutant strains of the coronavirus have been linked to Dubai. The United Kingdom instituted a travel ban on Friday, banning direct flights to the United Arab Emirates for the spread of a South African variant of the coronavirus.
Denmark has already discovered a traveler from Dubai who tested positive for the South African variant, the first discovery there. Like Britain, Danish celebrities also traveled to Dubai for the New Year.
In the Philippines, health officials say they discovered a British strain infecting a Filipino who made a business trip to Dubai on December 27. He returned to the Philippines on January 7 and was positive.
He “had no confirmed case before he left for Dubai,” said the Philippine Department of Health. Since then, Philippine authorities have discovered at least 16 other cases of the British variant, including two from Lebanon.
As coronavirus cases reported daily close to 4,000, Dubai dismissed the head of its government health agency without explanation. He interrupted live entertainment in bars, suspended non-essential surgery, limited the size of weddings and ordered gyms to increase the space between those who exercised. It now also requires coronavirus testing for all those flying to the airport.
The UAE has pinned its hopes on mass vaccinations, with Abu Dhabi distributing a Chinese vaccine through Sinopharm and Dubai offering Pfizer-BioNTech inoculation. The United Arab Emirates claims to have given 2.8 million doses to date, placing it among the top countries in the world.
However, people including al-Shaikh now question Dubai’s ability to handle growing cases. The hospitals contacted by the AP referred the issues to the Dubai government, which repeatedly declined to comment. The Saudi German Hospital in Dubai responded by saying it was “hoping to read the real news”, without giving details.
Dr. Santosh Kumar Sharma, the medical director of NMC Royal Hospital in Dubai, told the AP that “the number of cases (is) always increasing”, with more than half of its beds occupied by coronavirus patients.
The World Health Organization said that before the pandemic, the United Arab Emirates had almost 13,250 hospital beds for a country of more than 9 million inhabitants. He said Dubai and the northern emirates of the United Arab Emirates built field hospitals in the midst of the pandemic with some 5,000 beds, with Abu Dhabi building more.
But Dubai closed its 3,000-bed field hospital in July – the same day it was reopened for tourism. Dubai and the UAE Ministry of Health now advertise to nurses on Instagram.
“The sad thing is that great efforts have been made since January 2020 for us to come and undermine them with our own hands,” wrote al-Shaikh. “What makes things worse is the lack of transparency”.
However, this happened after the UAE’s autocratic government told those concerned earlier this week to “refrain from questioning the efforts of all those who have worked to contain this pandemic”.
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Associated Press writers Josef Federman in Jerusalem and Isabel DeBre in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.