Tuesday evening's UAE coronavirus briefing provided updates on the country's vaccination programme, with more than 10.4 million vaccine doses now administered nationwide.
At an earlier briefing we had heard that two-thirds of eligible groups have been vaccinated. In some age categories, including the over-60s, the uptake has been higher. Officials this week said that society and government were “working together” to keep up momentum.
It was also reported that the UAE is now ranked eighth globally, and first in the Arab world, on Bloomberg’s international Covid resilience index, which looks at a range of indicators to measure the effectiveness of a country’s pandemic response. Singapore topped the table, overtaking New Zealand in the process, which fell to second spot as its vaccination programme has been slow to gather momentum. The UAE, meanwhile, rose three places.
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UAE officials have been clear, however, that more needs to be done, reflecting the broader sense that there is little room for complacency even when data appears to paint an encouraging picture.
Addressing this point, Dr Saif Al Dhaheri, spokesperson for the National Emergency Crisis and Disasters Management Authority, earlier this month discussed some instances of vaccine hesitancy among sections of the community.
“Your hesitation today is an obstacle to our goals,” he said at a briefing. "It puts your family, loved ones and community at risk. The vaccine is our best means to recover and return to a normal life."
While there are good reasons why some members of society are unable to receive the vaccine – those who are too young, who may have allergies or underlying health conditions, among other reasons – the hesitancy of others is seen as a risk in the daily battle to recover ground lost to the pandemic.
Why people have delayed is a point of conjecture, although choice may have been a contributory factor, meaning some may have been tempted to delay while they wait for a particular vaccine to become licensed.
Dr Farida Al Hosani, health sector spokesperson, confirmed on Tuesday in an interview with The National that vaccine options will be available for the foreseeable future but added that no one option was better than another. The choice was simply there to spur community uptake and because "the UAE always tries to bring the best for its people".
The Sinopharm vaccine was initially the only approved vaccine, but both the Oxford-AstraZeneca and Pfizer-Biontech vaccine were subsequently given the go-ahead, as well as the Sputnik V, which has been approved for emergency use.
Each of the available vaccines do the job they are meant to do, which is to save lives. It is easy to lose sight of that when there is so much talk of vaccine delivery helping to open up international travel and movement once more.
Data released by the Abu Dhabi Public Health Centre this year found that the Sinopharm vaccine was more than 90 per cent effective in preventing hospitalisation and 95 per cent effective against admission to intensive care.
Those data points are a reminder that vaccines are primarily there to protect communities from infection, rather than being vehicles to enable complete freedom of movement for the inoculated, which is the implied definition of so-called vaccine passports, a subject of widespread discussion around the world.
In that same interview, Dr Al Hosani cautioned against travelling abroad this summer if you were not fully vaccinated or intending to journey to somewhere in the world where the risk of infection was high.
Her words served as a reminder that we need to be cautious about both the terminology and application of vaccine passports.
Most of us connect such passports with the idea that getting vaccinated will open up international borders. Access to vaccines will certainly speed our journey to the latter, by helping to protect and save lives, but it is misleading to promote the idea of vaccine passports as freedom-guaranteeing status symbols. That kind of symbolism is all wrong.
The wholesale opening of borders in the longer term should hinge on regular testing as much as vaccination
The very dynamic situations in India and Turkey this month are a reminder of how quickly borders can close, at which point a vaccine passport is largely redundant, save for it providing proof that the bearer has been inoculated and is less at risk than someone who has not been.
A return to the idea of certification, the 20th-century response to the post-1918 pandemic, is more appropriate than a so-called vaccine passport, which also could potentially discriminate against those who are unable to take some vaccines, such as pregnant women or breastfeeding mothers, vulnerable community members and children.
So, we need to move carefully in the next phase. Test events should be carried out, such as the plans that are being made for the President's Cup in May, and in the short-term interests of public safety it is appropriate to require protocols to be followed, such as capacity limits and spectators needing to show they have been vaccinated.
The wholesale opening of borders in the longer term should hinge on regular testing as much as vaccination. To date, the UAE has conducted more than 40 million tests on its population of approximately 10 million people.
A combination of the two strands – widespread testing and a comprehensive vaccine drive – will pay greater dividends over the coming months.
Nick March is an assistant editor-in-chief at The National
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Who are the Sacklers?
The Sackler family is a transatlantic dynasty that owns Purdue Pharma, which manufactures and markets OxyContin, one of the drugs at the centre of America's opioids crisis. The family is well known for their generous philanthropy towards the world's top cultural institutions, including Guggenheim Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, Tate in Britain, Yale University and the Serpentine Gallery, to name a few. Two branches of the family control Purdue Pharma.
Isaac Sackler and Sophie Greenberg were Jewish immigrants who arrived in New York before the First World War. They had three sons. The first, Arthur, died before OxyContin was invented. The second, Mortimer, who died aged 93 in 2010, was a former chief executive of Purdue Pharma. The third, Raymond, died aged 97 in 2017 and was also a former chief executive of Purdue Pharma.
It was Arthur, a psychiatrist and pharmaceutical marketeer, who started the family business dynasty. He and his brothers bought a small company called Purdue Frederick; among their first products were laxatives and prescription earwax remover.
Arthur's branch of the family has not been involved in Purdue for many years and his daughter, Elizabeth, has spoken out against it, saying the company's role in America's drugs crisis is "morally abhorrent".
The lawsuits that were brought by the attorneys general of New York and Massachussetts named eight Sacklers. This includes Kathe, Mortimer, Richard, Jonathan and Ilene Sackler Lefcourt, who are all the children of either Mortimer or Raymond. Then there's Theresa Sackler, who is Mortimer senior's widow; Beverly, Raymond's widow; and David Sackler, Raymond's grandson.
Members of the Sackler family are rarely seen in public.
The specs
- Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
- Power: 640hp
- Torque: 760nm
- On sale: 2026
- Price: Not announced yet
PROFILE OF SWVL
Started: April 2017
Founders: Mostafa Kandil, Ahmed Sabbah and Mahmoud Nouh
Based: Cairo, Egypt
Sector: transport
Size: 450 employees
Investment: approximately $80 million
Investors include: Dubai’s Beco Capital, US’s Endeavor Catalyst, China’s MSA, Egypt’s Sawari Ventures, Sweden’s Vostok New Ventures, Property Finder CEO Michael Lahyani
What is the FNC?
The Federal National Council is one of five federal authorities established by the UAE constitution. It held its first session on December 2, 1972, a year to the day after Federation.
It has 40 members, eight of whom are women. The members represent the UAE population through each of the emirates. Abu Dhabi and Dubai have eight members each, Sharjah and Ras al Khaimah six, and Ajman, Fujairah and Umm Al Quwain have four.
They bring Emirati issues to the council for debate and put those concerns to ministers summoned for questioning.
The FNC’s main functions include passing, amending or rejecting federal draft laws, discussing international treaties and agreements, and offering recommendations on general subjects raised during sessions.
Federal draft laws must first pass through the FNC for recommendations when members can amend the laws to suit the needs of citizens. The draft laws are then forwarded to the Cabinet for consideration and approval.
Since 2006, half of the members have been elected by UAE citizens to serve four-year terms and the other half are appointed by the Ruler’s Courts of the seven emirates.
In the 2015 elections, 78 of the 252 candidates were women. Women also represented 48 per cent of all voters and 67 per cent of the voters were under the age of 40.
Our legal columnist
Name: Yousef Al Bahar
Advocate at Al Bahar & Associate Advocates and Legal Consultants, established in 1994
Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers
Race 3
Produced: Salman Khan Films and Tips Films
Director: Remo D’Souza
Cast: Salman Khan, Anil Kapoor, Jacqueline Fernandez, Bobby Deol, Daisy Shah, Saqib Salem
Rating: 2.5 stars
ESSENTIALS
The flights
Emirates flies from Dubai to Phnom Penh via Yangon from Dh2,700 return including taxes. Cambodia Bayon Airlines and Cambodia Angkor Air offer return flights from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap from Dh250 return including taxes. The flight takes about 45 minutes.
The hotels
Rooms at the Raffles Le Royal in Phnom Penh cost from $225 (Dh826) per night including taxes. Rooms at the Grand Hotel d'Angkor cost from $261 (Dh960) per night including taxes.
The tours
A cyclo architecture tour of Phnom Penh costs from $20 (Dh75) per person for about three hours, with Khmer Architecture Tours. Tailor-made tours of all of Cambodia, or sites like Angkor alone, can be arranged by About Asia Travel. Emirates Holidays also offers packages.
Crazy Rich Asians
Director: Jon M Chu
Starring: Constance Wu, Henry Golding, Michelle Yeon, Gemma Chan
Four stars
Last 10 winners of African Footballer of the Year
2006: Didier Drogba (Chelsea and Ivory Coast)
2007: Frederic Kanoute (Sevilla and Mali)
2008: Emmanuel Adebayor (Arsenal and Togo)
2009: Didier Drogba (Chelsea and Ivory Coast)
2010: Samuel Eto’o (Inter Milan and Cameroon)
2011: Yaya Toure (Manchester City and Ivory Coast)
2012: Yaya Toure (Manchester City and Ivory Coast)
2013: Yaya Toure (Manchester City and Ivory Coast)
2014: Yaya Toure (Manchester City and Ivory Coast)
2015: Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (Borussia Dortmund and Gabon)
2016: Riyad Mahrez (Leicester City and Algeria)
