UAE to ban international travel for unvaccinated citizens

The United Arab Emirates in its effort to increase the vaccination rate among its citizens has announced through the state media that it will not allow unvaccinated citizens to take international trips from January 10th. The announcement came on Saturday through the state media, WAM citing the foreign ministry and the National Emergency Crisis and Disaster Management Authority. The same announcement continued to say that vaccinated citizens will also require their booster shots to be completely eligible for international travel.

Although the report claims that there would be exemptions in the execution of that policy for people on humanitarian or medical exemption grounds. This renewed vaccination efforts by the UAE government is a consequence of the rise in the infection rates of the coronavirus being experienced in the country and others around the world since the emergence of the Omicron variant of the virus. The Gulf state had infection rates that were rivalling its September figures in December, despite its huge vaccination rate.

Being one of the countries with the highest vaccination rates in the world with 99% of citizens having already gotten at least one dose of the vaccine, resistance to the vaccination policy does not look likely in the country.