DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The United Arab Emirates will consider “strict measures” to limit the movement of people unvaccinated against the coronavirus, as it seeks to ramp up a national inoculation campaign that has already administered more than 9.9 million shots.
“Strict measures are being considered to restrict the movement of unvaccinated individuals and to implement preventive measures such as restricting entry to some places and having access to some services, to ensure the health and safety of everyone,” Saif Al Dhaheri, a spokesman for the UAE’s National Emergency Crisis and Disaster Management Authority, said in a statement late Tuesday.
No further details were given for the “preventive measures” beyond restrictions on access to certain places and services in the country. The new measures would add to public health measures already in place aimed at keeping the virus at bay during the holy month of Ramadan.
The announcement sparked some negative responses online. One Twitter user by the handle Fawzia al Hashemi wrote, “Why restrict when vaccine is freedom of choice, not mandatory? When majority have taken vaccine, we are worried on them [sic] from the ones not taken? How!”
Another user by the name of Abeer Essa tweeted, “Where were the constraints on the travelers coming from the countries that were suffering from wide spread?”
The UAE’s coronavirus cases hit a peak of some 4,000 per day in late January, but have since fallen to fewer than 2,000 per day. The peak was due in large part to travelers coming to the UAE’s commercial capital Dubai for tourism, particularly from the U.K., which was then gripped by a new and more contagious variant of the virus. Dubai did not shut its doors to tourists nor restrict the movement of visitors or residents.
The UAE has overseen the second-fastest vaccination campaign in the world after Israel, announcing on Wednesday that 9.9 million vaccine doses had been administered to its mostly-expat population of roughly 10 million.
