UAE daily COVID-19 cases climb above 2,000

Daily cases had fallen below 100 in October but started to climb again in December as tourists flocked https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/tourists-flock-dubai-despite-global-covid-19-concerns-2021-12-22 to Dubai in the holiday period. The UAE, a federation of seven emirates, saw daily infections hit a record near 4,000 last January amid the peak tourism season as millions of visitors travelled to Dubai to escape lockdowns at home.

Daily coronavirus infections in the United Arab Emirates, the Gulf region's tourism and commercial hub, have risen above 2,000 for the first time since June. Authorities on Wednesday recorded 2,234 new infections in the past 24 hours, without breaking down the cases by variant.

The UAE, which is hosting the Dubai Expo 2020 world fair, announced its first known case of the coronavirus variant Omicron earlier this month. Daily cases had fallen below 100 in October but started to climb again in December as tourists flocked to Dubai in the holiday period.

The UAE, a federation of seven emirates, saw daily infections hit a record near 4,000 last January amid the peak tourism season as millions of visitors traveled to Dubai to escape lockdowns at home. Abu Dhabi this week reimposed restrictions requiring those entering the emirate from within the UAE to show proof of vaccination and negative PCR results, as of Thursday. It also instituted remote learning for the first two weeks of the new school term.

Dubai, which is hosting the Expo until the end of March and whose economy relies heavily on the travel industry, has not yet reintroduced restrictions that were largely lifted in mid-2020. Mask-wearing in public has remained mandatory in the UAE, which does not give a breakdown of coronavirus cases for each emirate.