Coronavirus: Negative PCR test result needed for some Abu Dhabi events

People attending business or entertainment events in Abu Dhabi will have to present a negative Covid-19 PCR test result received within the preceding 48 hours.

Event organisers and staff members will also have to undergo Covid-19 testing on a weekly basis, according to an updated circular issued by the Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi.

Capacity for visitors attending business events will be capped at 50 per cent, the circular said, and 30 per cent for those attending entertainment events.

Visitors, exhibitors and delegates will have to fill out registration forms in advance, with contact numbers in case of emergencies.

Venue and organiser staff and contractors must install the Al Hosn application.

Abu Dhabi successfully hosted its first major in-person exhibition since the Covid-19 pandemic broke out last month, when the International Defence Exhibition (Idex) was held in the capital.

International attendees did not have to follow the mandatory 10-day quarantine in place in Abu Dhabi but all those attending had to take several PCR tests, including one every 48 hours to access the event. Daily tests for delegates, exhibitors and attendees were available in 19 hotels in the Adnec area.

Volunteers walked through the halls enforcing distancing. Hundreds of stickers dictated how people entered and exited while the use of disinfectants and masks was strictly enforced. Anyone who let a mask drop for even a few seconds was swiftly warned by staff.

Reduced capacity for entertainment complexes

On Saturday, Abu Dhabi Emergency, Crisis and Disasters Committee approved the reopening of cinemas at 30 per cent operating capacity. They were ordered to close a month earlier as a measure of curbing the spread of Covid-19.

Capacity in malls in the capital was reduced to 40 per cent in early February. Gyms are also limited to 50 per cent, while restaurants and coffee shops must admit no more than 60 per cent of their capacity

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On Women's Day

Dr Nawal Al-Hosany: Why more women should be on the frontlines of climate action

Shelina Janmohamed: Why shouldn't a spouse be compensated fairly for housework?

Samar Elmnhrawy: How companies in the Middle East can catch up on gender equality

The National Editorial: Is there much to celebrate on International Women's Day 2021?

Conflict, drought, famine

Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.

Band Aid

Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.