DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – The United Arab Emirates is on track to vaccinate half of its population against the coronavirus before the deadline it set at the end of March, according to the country’s health officials.
The small desert sheikdom of 10 million people started rolling out its vaccination campaign to the public at the end of last year, after making China’s Sinopharm vaccine available to health professionals and government officials starting in September. And in terms of vaccination rates, the UAE’s national program is now the second largest in the world after Israel.
More than 1.8 million people have already received the Sinopharm vaccine, which is freely available to all citizens and residents. This is more than quadrupling the US per capita vaccination rate. And the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine developed in the USA and Germany is being launched in Dubai, currently in its first phase, reserved for people over 60, those with pre-existing health conditions and frontline workers.
A health professional shows a dose of the Chinese Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine at a vaccination center in the Jordanian capital, Amman, on January 13, 2021.
Khalil Mazraawi | AFP | Getty Images
Both vaccines require two vaccines with an interval of 28 days, and 28 days after receiving the second injection, patients no longer need to be quarantined, but will still have to wear masks and practice social distance, the National Crisis Management Authority of Country emergency and disaster said
And although getting the vaccine is optional, says NCEMA, it is highly recommended. Government officials in Abu Dhabi who choose not to have one of the vaccines will be required to have a CRP test every two weeks.
“We are very pleased with the progress we have made,” Omar Ghobash, assistant minister of culture and public diplomacy in the United Arab Emirates, told CNBC Hadley Gamble on Sunday. “Obviously, there are people who are still getting sick and, unfortunately, dying, but on the whole we think we have managed to find the balance between health and safety on the one hand and economic viability on the other.”
Sinopharm’s developers say their vaccine is 86% effective, while the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine is 95% effective, although some medical professionals have expressed skepticism about the Chinese-made vaccine due to a lack of published data on its development and testing. In November, UAE leaders, including Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, posted images of themselves receiving the Sinopharm photo.
Vaccinations advance amid increasing cases
Cases have skyrocketed in the Gulf country in less than three weeks since the end of December, when tourists crowded Dubai’s beaches, restaurants and shopping malls. Although visitors require a negative PCR test result before boarding or on arrival, many suspect that a more transmissible strain of the virus first identified in the UK is at least partly to blame, given the high volume of British tourists in the emirate for the holiday season.
The jump in cases – now averaging more than 3,000 a day compared to about 1,000 a day in late December – has led the UK to remove the United Arab Emirates from its “safe travel corridor”, even with UK travelers being prevented from entering many countries for fear of the new virus strain. The UAE has successfully maintained its case count below 2,000 per day throughout the year 2020.
The UAE recorded 256,732 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 751 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Sunday saw a record daily case count of 3,453.
Women bathers sit along a beach in the Gulf of Dubai emirate on July 24, 2020, while behind is the Burj al-Arab hotel. After a painful four-month stoppage in tourism that ended in early July, Dubai is announcing itself as a safe destination with resources to repel the coronavirus.
KARIM SAHIB | AFP via Getty Images
Still, it seems that, at least for now, the party city and regional commercial capital of Dubai will continue its vaccine campaign, while keeping its tourism-dependent economy open.
The neighboring, oil-rich capital, Abu Dhabi, for its part, has been much more conservative, requiring a series of negative PCR test results over several days for anyone wanting to enter the emirate – even from other emirates in the country. .
As for Dubai, wearing masks remains mandatory in all public places, excluding activities such as eating or doing strenuous exercise, and officials remind residents that they must distance themselves socially. The emirate’s opening, which gradually increased from the summer, had followed a period of one of the most rigid blockades in the world in March and April.
In the New Year, the Dubai government was allowing residents to hold meetings inside their homes for up to 30 people. Hotels that were almost completely empty are seeing a 70% increase in occupancy rates, as tourists escape their own countries in search of a sense of normalcy and warm weather.
“They are balancing personal responsibility with an economy that needs to move forward,” said Ghobash of the country.
“Vaccinating the highest possible percentage of society” is the country’s goal, tweeted NCEMA earlier this month, in order to “access the immunity acquired from vaccination, which will help reduce the number of cases and control the disease”.