Expo 2020 urges participants to join vaccination drive
The Expo 2020 Dubai Steering Committee has urged all of Expo’s 200-plus participants to join vaccination drive, which will be offered free to all official participants and their staff.
From October 1, 2021, to March 31, 2022, Expo 2020 Dubai will welcome visitors from every corner of the globe to join the making of a new world, as it brings together the planet in one place to reimagine tomorrow.
Manuel Salchli, chair of the Expo 2020 Steering Committee and Commissioner General for Switzerland at Expo 2020, said, “Health and safety is a pivotal part of the planning and operations for all World Expos and the ongoing global pandemic has put this more sharply into focus. It is especially important that all official participants should benefit from the UAE’S generous offer to vaccinate their delegations and it is the collective responsibility of all the countries to support this initiative to ensure an enjoyable and safe Expo for all participants.”
The Steering Committee met after the sixth and final International Participants Meeting (IPM), which took place earlier this week. The IPM saw more than 370 senior representatives from 173 countries gather in Dubai to discuss final preparations ahead of the mega-event’s opening on 1 October, and experience firsthand the robust health and safety measures that have already been rolled out.
At the beginning of the year, Expo 2020 launched an extensive COVID-19 vaccination drive for all Expo 2020 employees and their households. More widely, the UAE has overseen one of the world’s fastest vaccination programmes, already administering more than 10 million doses since the programme began a few months ago.
Dr Amer Sharif, Head of Dubai’s Covid-19 Command and Control Centre (CCC), said: “Since the beginning of the pandemic, the UAE has followed a clear strategy in managing Covid-19. Dubai’s Covid-19 Command and Control Centre has, since its establishment, developed protocols, guidelines and precautionary measures that are science-based and datadriven. The guiding principle in managing the pandemic has always been to strike a balance between lives and livelihoods.”