Photographer: Giuseppe Cacace / AFP / Getty Images
Photographer: Giuseppe Cacace / AFP / Getty Images
Dubai hopes that one of the world’s fastest vaccination programs and rapid testing technology will help achieve its goal of hosting this year’s Expo 2020 event, after the coronavirus pandemic caused a reprieve.
The government is confident that vaccination programs will be successful enough to open the Expo on Oct. 1 and says it is still possible that 25 million people will visit the city for the six-month event.
The Expo, which Dubai has been preparing for a decade, should become one of the largest events in the world this year, generating billions of dollars for the government. The resurgence of the virus in recent months has complicated planning and has led to questions of whether it should be downsized.
Tokyo, where the Olympics will take place in July, is facing similar problems, although authorities there also insist on the event will continue.
“It’s just not realistic to change your target because your factors are super fluid,” Expo 2020 Director General Reem Al Hashimi said in an interview with Bloomberg TV. “We have rolled out vaccinations very aggressively in the UAE, but so have many other countries around the world.”
The United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is a part, has administered nearly 1.8 million vaccine doses and has the second highest number of vaccinations per 100 people worldwide, after Israel. The country has also been leading the way in per capita testing, and Al Hashimi said there will be a testing facility on site.
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“We are hopeful that it comes in October, it should be better than where we were when it had to be postpone the event in April, ”said Al Hashimi.
Dubai is sticking to its schedule to host the delayed Expo 2020 this year
Dubai is also reviewing Expo 2020’s legacy as a commercial and residential space. The pandemic has exacerbated a housing crisis in the emirate, the Middle East’s business hub, where oversupply and economic uncertainty have pushed prices down for years.
“We’re not going to harp anything if it really doesn’t make sense anymore,” said Al Hashimi. But due to the site’s distinctive character, “we don’t rule it out completely. We’re taking parts of it where it makes sense, but we’re also redesigning what the overall programming of the site’s legacy would look like. “
The future of the site will still be “steeped in technology because this is a 5G site,” she said.
Expo 2020 will open a sustainability pavilion for the public on January 22 to April 10. The opening of the new pavilion is both a “teaser for the domestic audience” and an international teaser about Dubai’s idea of sustainability, Al Hashimi said.
– With help from Desley Humphrey