DUBAI, UAE – The UAE is on track to have half of its population vaccinated against coronavirus before a deadline set in late March, according to the country’s health authorities.
The small 10 million desert kingdom began rolling out its vaccination campaign to the public late last year, after making China’s Sinopharm vaccine available to front-line health workers and government officials as of September. And in terms of vaccination rates, the UAE’s national program is now the second highest in the world after Israel.
More than 1.8 million people have already received the Sinopharm vaccine, which is available free of charge to all citizens and residents. This is more than quadrupling the per capita vaccination rate in the United States and the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine developed by the United States and Germany is being rolled out in Dubai, currently in its first phase reserved for people over 60, those with pre – existing health conditions and front-line workers.
A health worker shows a dose of Chinese vaccine Sinopharm Covid-19 at a vaccination center in the Jordanian capital, Amman, on January 13, 2021.
Khalil Mazraawi | AFP | Getty Images
Both vaccines require two separate shots 28 days apart and, 28 days after receiving the second shot, patients are no longer required to be quarantined, but will have to wear masks and practice social distancing, the report said. national crisis and emergency authority in cases of disaster. dit
And while getting the vaccine is optional, NCEMA says, it’s highly recommended. Abu Dhabi government employees who decide not to take one of the vaccines will have to take a PCR test every two weeks.
“We are very pleased with the progress we have made,” Omar Ghobash, the UAE’s deputy minister of culture and public diplomacy, told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble on Sunday. “Viously, obviously there are people who still get sick and unfortunately die, but overall we believe we have managed to find the balance between health and safety, on the one hand, and economic viability, on the other.”
Sinopharm developers say their vaccine is 86% effective, while the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine was found to be 95% effective, although some medical professionals have expressed skepticism about the vaccine manufactured in the United States. China due to lack of published data on its development and trials. In November, UAE leaders, including the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, tweeted images of themselves being shot by Sinopharm.
Vaccinations are advancing amid rising cases
Cases have skyrocketed in the Gulf country in less than three weeks since late December when tourists went to Dubai’s beaches, restaurants and shopping malls fully open. Although visitors need 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 during the holidays. season.
The jump in cases, which now averages more than 3,000 a day compared to about 1,000 a day in late December, caused the UK to withdraw the UAE from its “safe travel corridor”, even all as travelers from the UK are banned in many countries for fear. of the new strain of the virus. The United Arab Emirates had successfully kept the count of cases below 2,000 per day throughout 2020.
The UAE has reported 256,732 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 751 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. A record daily record of 3,453 cases was recorded on Sunday.
Sunbathing women sit along a beach in the Emirate of the Gulf of Dubai on July 24, 2020, while behind them is the Burj al-Arab Hotel. After a painful four-month tourist shutdown that ended in early July, Dubai is billed as a safe destination with the resources to prevent coronavirus.
KARIM SAHIB | AFP via Getty Images
Still, it looks like now at least the party’s commercial city and Dubai’s regional commercial capital will continue its vaccine campaign while keeping its tourism-dependent economy open.
Meanwhile, the oil-rich neighboring capital, Abu Dhabi, has been much more conservative and has required a series of negative PCR testing results for a few days for anyone wanting to enter the emirate, even from ‘other emirates of the country.
As for Dubai, masked clothing must be worn in all public places, excluding activities such as eating or strenuous exercise, and authorities remind residents to distance themselves socially. The opening of the emirate, which gradually increased from the summer, had followed a period of one of the strictest closures in the world in March and April.
By New Year’s Eve, the Dubai government allowed residents to hold meetings at home for up to 30 people. Hotels, once almost completely empty, experience a 70% occupancy rate on the rise, as tourists escape from their own countries to have a sense of normalcy and warm weather.
“They are balancing personal responsibility with an economy that needs to move forward,” Ghobash said of the country.
“Vaccinating the largest possible percentage of society” is the country’s goal, he tweeted to NCEMA earlier this month, to “access the acquired immunity resulting from vaccination, which will help reduce the number of cases and disease control “.