DDHK.ORG - The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia announced a ban on international flights from 20 countries. This includes flights from Indonesia.
This was announced by the Ministry of the Interior of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as published in the breaking news of the Haramain Sharifain website entitled "Saudi Arabia suspends international flights from 20 countries starting Wednesday". This closure was carried out as a result of the discovery of a new, more contagious variant of COVID-19.
"The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has suspended international flights from 20 countries starting Wednesday, February 3, 2021, at 21:00 (Saudi time) at which time a new variant of COVID-19 has emerged," read breaking news from the Ministry of Interior of Saudi Arabia as quoted by Haramain. Syarifain, a website that provides live news from Mecca and Medina, Saudi Arabia.
The decision, wrote Haramain Syarifain, covers flights from Argentina, United Arab Emirates, Germany, the United States, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Pakistan, Brazil, Portugal, Great Britain, Turkey, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, France, Lebanon, Egypt. , India and Japan. However, diplomats and health workers from the countries above will still be allowed to enter in accordance with applicable precautions.
Quoting Indonesian CNN, from AFP, the announcement came after Saudi Health Minister Tawfiq al-Rabiah on Sunday (31/1/2021) warned that the new mutation of COVID-19 is likely to impose restrictions if citizens and residents do not comply with health protocols.
Since the corona pandemic was discovered, this is not the first time for the Saudis to temporarily close flights from abroad. Last year, the Saudis decided to stop the Umrah and Haj pilgrimage due to the corona pandemic.
After being opened to a limited number of pilgrims, the Saudis again banned international flights in mid-December. The decision was made after cases of a new type of corona virus infection that is more rapidly transmitted in Britain and a number of European countries.
Saudi Arabia is the country with the highest cases in the Middle East with reports of more than 368 thousand cases of COVID-19 with nearly 6.400 deaths. The Saudis have started a coronavirus vaccination campaign on December 17 after receiving a delivery of the vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech. [DDHK News]
