After opening itself to New Year’s revelers, Dubai is now being blamed by several countries for spreading COVID-19 abroad, even as questions swirl about the city-state’s ability to handle reported record spikes in cases.
The Dubai Media Office said that the sheikhdom is doing all it can to handle the pandemic.
“After a year of managing the pandemic, we can confidently say the current situation is under control and we have our plans to surge any capacity in the healthcare system should a need rise,” the office said.
Photo: AP
However, former Dubai Department of Finance director-general Nasser al-Shaikh offered a different assessment on Twitter on Thursday, and asked authorities to take control of a spiraling caseload.
“The leadership bases its decisions on recommendations from the team, the wrong recommendations which put human souls in danger and negatively affect our society,” al-Shaikh wrote, adding that “our economy requires accountability.”
Dubai, known for its long-haul carrier Emirates, the world’s tallest building, and its beaches and bars, in July became one of the first travel destinations to describe itself as open for business.
The move staunched the bleeding of its crucial tourism and real-estate sectors after lockdowns and curfews cratered its economy.
As tourism restarted, daily reported COVID-19 case numbers slowly grew, but mostly remained stable through the fall.
However, then came New Year’s Eve — a major draw for travelers from countries otherwise shut down over the pandemic, who partied without masks in bars and on yachts.
For the past 17 days, the United Arab Emirates as a whole has reported record daily case numbers as lines at Dubai testing facilities grow.
In Israel, more than 900 travelers returning from Dubai have been infected, according to the military, which conducts contact tracing.
The returnees created a chain of infections numbering more than 4,000 people, the Israeli military told reporters.
In the UK, tabloids have splashed shots of bikini-clad British influencers partying in Dubai.
“International travel, right now, should not be happening unless it’s absolutely necessary,” British Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Matt Hancock told the BBC this week. “No parties in Paris or weekends in Dubai. That is not on and in most cases, it’s against the law.”
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘POINT OF NO RETURN’: The Caribbean nation needs increased international funding and support for a multinational force to help police tackle expanding gang violence The top UN official in Haiti on Monday sounded an alarm to the UN Security Council that escalating gang violence is liable to lead the Caribbean nation to “a point of no return.” Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Haiti Maria Isabel Salvador said that “Haiti could face total chaos” without increased funding and support for the operation of the Kenya-led multinational force helping Haiti’s police to tackle the gangs’ expanding violence into areas beyond the capital, Port-Au-Prince. Most recently, gangs seized the city of Mirebalais in central Haiti, and during the attack more than 500 prisoners were freed, she said.
RSS