Elderly man in Sharjah, UAE, wearing mask lifts his hands in prayer outside a mosque, which has been closed amid the pandemic. AFP
Elderly man in Sharjah, UAE, wearing mask lifts his hands in prayer outside a mosque, which has been closed amid the pandemic. AFP

2020 - The COVID-19 pandemic

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Updated 19 April 2025
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2020 - The COVID-19 pandemic

2020 - The COVID-19 pandemic
  • The emergence of the novel coronavirus in China brought the world to a standstill, starkly revealing the interconnectedness and fragility of the global system

LONDON: In his new-year message on Jan. 2, 2020, the director-general of the World Health Organization urged the world to “take a moment to thank all the brave health workers around the world.”

Within a few weeks, the words of Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus would begin to take on an unexpectedly urgent meaning. It quickly became clear the modern world was about to be engulfed in a fight for its life with a microscopic organism capable of a virulence not seen since the flu pandemic of 1918-19.

It also swiftly became apparent that for all the advances in medicine and technology in the intervening century, still we remained at the mercy of wayward nature, thanks in part to the inability of the world’s governments to act as one even in the face of a deadly global crisis.

On Jan. 26, 2020, I wrote an op-ed article, syndicated throughout the region, urging Gulf and other states to, at the very least, screen incoming passengers from China, where the virus emerged.

“The only correct reaction at this stage,” I wrote, “is prudent overreaction.”

How we wrote it




Arab News dedicated multi-page coverage to global updates on the day the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic.

On Feb. 17, I hardened the message: The single most effective defense our interconnected world had against the new virus was to ground every aircraft.

At the time, I was a medical journalist, writing investigative articles for the British Medical Journal and other publications. But in the case of the COVID-19 pandemic I was not blessed with any special insight. The tragedy of what would soon unfold was the fact that all the steps we could have taken to prevent it at the outset were simply common sense.

Yet at first, few outside of the central Chinese city of Wuhan seemed overly alarmed by the cluster of more than 40 mysterious, pneumonia-like cases reported by China to the World Health Organization’s local country office on the last day of 2019.

A week after Tedros’ speech, which made no mention of anything untoward brewing in China, Chinese authorities announced they had identified the cause of the outbreak: a novel form of coronavirus, a family of viruses common in animals and humans.

Where did it originate? For years, the theories have spread thick and fast. At first, the finger was pointed at pangolins, a scaly mammal prized in Chinese folk medicine for the supposed healing powers of its scales, and often traded illegally.




Dubai’s Burj Khalifa lit up with a message “Stay Home” reminding citizens to stay home amid the COVID-19 pandemic, on March 24, 2020. AFP

Conspiracy theorists suggested the origin of the virus was a Chinese lab, where it was deliberately engineered and then leaked out. This theory resurfaced as recently as January this year, when John Ratcliffe, US President Donald Trump’s newly appointed head of the CIA, revived a claim in which his own agency previously said it has “low confidence.”

The reality is we will almost certainly never know the true origins of the virus.

Most human coronavirus infections are mild but during the previous 20 years, two versions emerged that hinted at the family’s capacity to cause serious harm: severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus, or SARS-CoV, and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, or MERS-CoV. Together, they accounted for “only” 10,000 cases, with mortality rates of 10 percent and 37 percent respectively.

The new coronavirus that was emerging in early 2020 had far bigger, and more sinister, ambitions. On Jan. 11, China reported the first death caused by the virus, of a 61-year-old man with underlying health conditions who had been a customer at the market where, at first, the virus was thought to have jumped from animals to humans.

Over the coming days, and even weeks, the virus could still have been contained. But Chinese authorities were slow to introduce effective lockdown procedures. Aircraft continued to fly and, at first, the rest of the world looked on with a seemingly detached indifference that would soon prove fatal, to people and economies worldwide.

Even as the virus spread rapidly within China, the WHO played down the threat, declining to recommend the introduction of travel restrictions to the country or specific health precautions for travelers.

On Feb. 4, in fact, WHO chief Tedros even urged countries not to ban flights from Wuhan for fear of “increasing fear and stigma, with little public health benefit.”




Doctor attends to patients in intensive care in the COVID-19 ward of the Maria Pia Hospital in Turin. AFP

Few public-health pronouncements have proved to be so ill-judged.

On Feb. 11, the organization gave the virus its official name: severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, or SARS-CoV-2. The disease it caused was also named: COVID-19.

But it would be March 11 before the WHO finally declared the outbreak to be a pandemic, a state of affairs that was already blindingly obvious to the 114 countries that by then were already in the grip of the virus.

Saudi Arabia recorded its first case on March 2. The patient was a man who had traveled from Iran via Bahrain over the King Fahd Causeway and, like the Kingdom’s second patient two days later, he failed to declare he had been in Iran, where cases of the disease were rocketing.

On March 25, just over three weeks after the first case in the Kingdom, COVID-19 claimed its first victim in Saudi Arabia, a 51-year-old Afghani who died in Madinah.

The genie was out of the bottle. Saudi authorities acted swiftly, forming a special action committee composed of representatives from 13 ministries, and introducing a broad range of measures including screening, quarantining all travelers when necessary, and fast-tracking production of essential medical supplies and equipment.

The Umrah pilgrimage was suspended, airports were closed, public gatherings were restricted and the Qatif region, where the Kingdom’s first cases had emerged, was swiftly locked down.

Key Dates

  • 1

    Chinese epidemiologists identify a group of patients in the city of Wuhan experiencing an unusual, treatment-resistant, pneumonia-like illness.

  • 2

    China notifies World Health Organization of “cases of pneumonia of unknown etiology.”

    Timeline Image Dec. 31, 2019

  • 3

    Chinese media report first known death.

  • 4

    The WHO names the new virus severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, or SARS-CoV-2, and the disease it causes COVID-19.

  • 5

    The WHO declares a global pandemic.

    Timeline Image Mar. 11, 2020

  • 6

    COVID-19’s single worst day, with 17,049 deaths reported worldwide.

    Timeline Image Jan. 21, 2021

  • 7

    After 3 years and 5 months, 767 million confirmed cases and 7 million deaths worldwide, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the WHO, declares COVID-19 is no longer a global health emergency.

    Timeline Image May 5, 2023

On March 25, the speed of the Kingdom’s response earned praise from Dr. Ahmed Al-Mandhari, the WHO’s regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean. Saudi Arabia, he said, had learned lessons from its experience a decade earlier with the MERS-CoV coronavirus, and the country was “also drawing from its unique expertise in managing mass gatherings and emergency preparedness during the annual Hajj pilgrimage.”

Around the world, however, few governments reacted as quickly. There was little cohesion in the responses; the already tardy WHO advice was often shunned until it was far too late, ineffective measures were introduced in piecemeal fashion, and there was a failure to coordinate responses internationally.

In the parlance of epidemiology, aircraft served as the fatally efficient vector for the virus, in the same way that the mosquito is the vector that spreads malaria. Yet for too long, governments around the world hesitated to take the extreme, but obviously necessary, action of suspending all commercial air travel.

Eventually, and in an uncoordinated, haphazard fashion, flights were grounded around the world but this came too late to prevent the virus traveling the globe. Ultimately, the delay caused far more global economic disruption than if air travel had been halted early on.

Even then, even after the virus had been allowed to make its way around the world, in many countries there was continued reluctance to act swiftly and shutter shops, offices, restaurants and transport systems, and to confine people to their homes. Lacking firm guidance from their governments, many people continued to mingle at work, on trains, in restaurants, in each other’s homes and on beaches.

And, increasingly, in hospitals.




Healthcare workers ackwoledge applause in memory of their co-worker Esteban, a male nurse that died of COVID-19 at the Severo Ochoa Hospital in Leganes, near Madrid, on April 10, 2020. AFP

As the virus spread inexorably around the globe, it exposed a lack of long-term health planning and preparedness in many countries where authorities, caught flat-footed, found themselves desperately short of bed space and competing ruthlessly with other nations for scarce supplies of the personal protective equipment required by front-line medical staff, all-important mechanical ventilators and, as hastily developed drugs were developed, limited supplies of vaccines.

Around the world, major international events, from Dubai’s Expo 2020 to the Tokyo Olympics, tumbled like dominoes as governments and organizers finally acknowledged that any gathering of people was a recipe for magnifying the disaster.

From the perspective of the history books, in terms of everything other than the virus and the savage toll it exacted in lost lives and devastated economies, 2020 had become the year that never was.

By the beginning of April, just three months after the first victims had been identified in Wuhan, the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 had passed 1 million, more than 50,000 people had died, and much of the world was living in isolation and fear.

Faced with agonizingly difficult life-or-death decisions, health systems worldwide found themselves forced to adopt triage systems of a kind more typically seen on battlefields, allocating limited resources to those most likely to survive.

Horror stories of loss and sacrifice emerged every day, in almost every country around the globe. On the front lines, some of the courageous health workers who had been honored in the WHO chief’s new-year speech paid for their continued dedication with their lives.

It would be May 5, 2023, more than three years after COVID-19 was designated a pandemic, before the WHO declared the global public health emergency to be over.

Victory over SARS-CoV-2 came at terrible cost: more than 14 million lives lost between Jan. 1, 2020, and Dec. 3, 2021, alone; billions left seriously ill; and traumatic disruption imposed on economies and everyday life across much of the world.

In Saudi Arabia, the Interior Ministry signaled an early victory over the virus, lifting the bulk of precautionary and preventive measures on June 13, 2022.




Muslim worshippers circumambulate the Holy Kaaba in Makkah’s Grand Mosque amid COVID-19 restrictions. AFP

During the 833-day war against the virus in the Kingdom there were 780,135 confirmed cases and 9,176 deaths. Almost 43 million COVID-19 tests were carried out and 66.5 million vaccinations administered.

The virus has not disappeared from the planet. But improved treatments and the fact that a critical mass of more than 70 percent of the world’s population has now been vaccinated means that the first great plague of modern times is now no more — or less — of a threat than the flu.

The “Keep Your Distance” stickers on pavements, shop floors and public transport have mostly faded away, and most of us have forgotten the advice we once followed so diligently: cover your cough, practice good hand hygiene and, if a home test reveals you have COVID-19, stay home until you have been fever-free for at least 24 hours.

But public-health agencies, at least, remain vigilant. XEC, one of the latest variants of the virus, caused concern when it emerged in the autumn of 2024. It seemed genetically equipped to evade both our immune defenses and the barriers erected by vaccines. But so far, hospitalizations in the US, where tests have revealed high levels of the XEC variant in wastewater, have not risen.

Either way, the next pandemic is only a matter of when, not if, whether it is a variant of SARS-CoV-2 or another virus altogether.




Woman has her temperature checked in an effort to contain COVID-19 spread in Nongchik district on the border of Thailand's southern province of Pattani. AFP

As a global reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic, member states of the World Health Organization will gather at the World Health Assembly in May to agree a Pandemic Preparedness Treaty designed “to foster an all-of-government and all-of-society approach, strengthening national, regional and global capacities and resilience to future pandemics.”

Unfortunately, though, it seems that one of the world’s largest countries will not be there. On Jan. 20, 2025, the first day of his second term, President Donald Trump signed an executive order withdrawing the US from the WHO.

One immediate consequence of this could be that the US stops sending data on the occurrence of diseases to the organization and, especially in terms of monitoring the SARS-CoV-2 virus, that would be of great concern. In the 28 days to Jan. 12, 2025, there were 2,861 deaths from COVID-19 reported to the WHO, the vast majority of them in the US.

  • Jonathan Gornall, a writer for Arab News, was a former investigative medical journalist for the British Medical Journal.


Several hurt in anti-migrant unrest in Spanish town

Several hurt in anti-migrant unrest in Spanish town
Updated 39 sec ago
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Several hurt in anti-migrant unrest in Spanish town

Several hurt in anti-migrant unrest in Spanish town
MADRID: Several people were hurt in a second night of anti-migrant unrest in the Spanish town of Torre Pacheco after a pensioner was beaten up, authorities said on Sunday.
Despite a major police presence, groups armed with batons roamed the streets looking for foreign-origin people, regional newspaper La Opinion de Murcia reported.
The regional government did not say how many people were injured but stated that at least one person had been arrested for the violence.
The unrest erupted after a 68-year-old man told Spanish media he was beaten up in the street on Wednesday by three youths of North African origin.
The attack was filmed and put on social media.
The town hall organized a demonstration on Friday that was intended to be peaceful but where far-right elements shouted anti-migrant slogans.
One group, named “Deport Them Now,” posted a message on social media calling for attacks against people of North African origin.
Spanish authorities launched an appeal for calm on Sunday in the town of 36,000 people.
“Torre Pacheco must get back to normal,” said the head of the Murcian regional government Fernando Lopez Miras in a message on X.
“I understand the frustration but nothing justifies violence,” added the conservative politician.
“I call on residents to be calm, for tranquility,” said Torre Pacheco mayor, Pedro Angel Roca Ternel, on RTVE public television.
Spain’s Youth Minister Sira Rego, a member of the extreme left wing party Sumar, condemned the violence against migrants in a message on Bluesky, blaming the role of the “ultra-right” in the unrest.

Oman tourism revenues hit $5.5bn in 2024

Oman tourism revenues hit $5.5bn in 2024
Updated 6 min 32 sec ago
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Oman tourism revenues hit $5.5bn in 2024

Oman tourism revenues hit $5.5bn in 2024
  • Tourism contribution to GDP rose to 2.7 billion rials
  • Government continues to adopt innovative marketing strategies

JEDDAH: Oman’s tourism sector contributed over 2.12 billion rials ($5.51 billion) to the Gulf country’s national economy in 2024, up from 1.75 billion rials in 2018, according to official data.

The latest figures from the National Center for Statistics and Information indicate that this increase reflects a compound annual growth rate of 3.2 percent, reinforcing the industry’s role as a key pillar in the sultanate’s economic diversification strategy.

The sector’s contribution to gross domestic product also rose to 2.7 billion rials, up from 2.3 billion rials in 2018, underscoring tourism’s expanding macroeconomic impact, according to the Oman News Agency.

European travelers significantly boosted Oman’s tourism sector in 2024, driving a 10.2 percent rise in hotel revenues during the first five months of the year, according to NCSI data released last July.

The country’s growing appeal among European tourists, alongside strong local and regional demand, reflects its broader strategy to diversify its tourism base and bolster the hospitality sector, in line with similar initiatives across Gulf Cooperation Council member states.

Minister of Heritage and Tourism Salim bin Mohammed Al-Mahrouqi said the growth in visitor arrivals, spending, and economic value reflects the result of focused and ambitious efforts by the ministry to promote Oman as a rich and diverse tourism destination, according to ONA.

He added that the latest indicators serve as a testament to the government’s economic diversification policies and effective inter-agency coordination that supports investment and accelerates project implementation.

Al-Mahrouqi also said that the ministry continues to adopt innovative marketing strategies, strengthen partnerships with the private sector, and develop offerings to enhance the overall visitor experience.

GDP growth forecast at 2.2% in 2025

The sultanate’s economy is forecast to grow by 2.2 percent in 2025, up from 1.7 percent the previous year, supported by a recovery in oil activities and steady non-oil sector expansion, according to the Ministry of Economy’s 2025 economic outlook.

Inflation is projected to rise modestly to 1.3 percent, up from 0.6 percent in 2024. Still, it will remain within the target range of Oman’s 10th five-year plan, aided by continued government subsidies and stable global commodity prices.

The ministry estimates GDP at constant prices will increase from 38.3 billion rials in 2024 to 39.2 billion rials in 2025. Oil activities are expected to rebound with 1.3 percent growth after a 3 percent contraction in 2024, while non-oil sectors are projected to grow by 2.7 percent.

Medium-term momentum is expected to continue through 2026 and 2027, bolstered by strategic projects and higher oil production, ONA reported.


Imran Khan’s party says 90-day ‘do or die’ anti-Pakistan government movement underway

Imran Khan’s party says 90-day ‘do or die’ anti-Pakistan government movement underway
Updated 13 min 36 sec ago
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Imran Khan’s party says 90-day ‘do or die’ anti-Pakistan government movement underway

Imran Khan’s party says 90-day ‘do or die’ anti-Pakistan government movement underway
  • Khan’s party earlier this month announced its plan to launch nationwide anti-government movement after Muharram
  • Ali Amin Gandapur, KP chief minister and a close Imran Khan aide, says movement to “reach its peak” on August 5

ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party announced on Sunday that its 90-day “do or die” protest movement against the government is underway, saying that it would determine the future of the party. 

Earlier this month, the PTI announced it would launch a nationwide protest movement after the Islamic month of Muharram, following a ruling by Pakistan’s top court denying the party reserved parliamentary seats for minorities and women.

Tensions further escalated days earlier when 26 PTI provincial lawmakers were suspended by the speaker of the Punjab Assembly for 15 sessions, after they protested during Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif’s speech on June 27.

Gandapur arrived in the eastern city of Lahore from KP on Saturday to discuss the party’s political strategy and finalize its protest movement against the government.

“We have announced a 90-day protest movement, which began yesterday [Saturday] and it will be a do-or-die movement for us, whether we remain there [in KP government] or not, ” Gandapur, flanked by the PTI’s leadership, told reporters at a news conference in Lahore.

 

The KP chief minister vowed that the party’s anti-government protest movement will “reach its peak” on August 5, marking two years since Khan was arrested after being convicted by a court for illegally selling state gifts. 

‘REAL DECISION-MAKERS’ 

Khan, who has remained in prison since then, says the charges against him are politically motivated and has denied wrongdoing. His party has held various protests demanding his release and an independent investigation into the elections of February 2024. In one of the PTI’s protests in November last year, the government said four troops were killed in clashes with Khan supporters. The PTI rejects this allegation. 

Gandapur alleged that the PTI was being denied its right to hold peaceful protests across the country, vowing that it would now mobilize people across the country.

“We will announce a plan accordingly, after taking all our local workers and leaders into confidence on how to proceed with this movement,” the chief minister said. 

On holding talks with the government, Gandapur said his government was ready to hold talks but with the “real decision-makers,” indirectly referring to the military. 

“They [military establishment] are the real decision-makers, so we will talk to them only as there is no point in talking to those [the government] who have no power to make any decisions,” Gandapur said. 

Arab News reached out to federal ministers and senior leaders of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party for a response, but did not receive one till the filing of this report.

Pakistan’s military says it does not interfere in political issues and rejects the PTI’s allegations that it conspired with Khan’s political opponents to oust his government in a parliamentary vote in April 2022. 

Pakistan’s government has denied the PTI’s allegations of stifling dissent and says the elections of February 2024 were transparent. It accuses the former prime minister and his party of attempting to disrupt the government’s efforts to achieve sustainable economic growth via violent protests.


Syria wildfires contained after 10 days

Syria wildfires contained after 10 days
Updated 12 min 19 sec ago
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Syria wildfires contained after 10 days

Syria wildfires contained after 10 days
  • The blazes in the coastal province of Latakia broke out amid an intense heatwave across the region
  • UN humanitarian agency says fires destroyed about 100 square kilometers of forest and farmland

DAMASCUS: Syria’s civil defense agency on Sunday said wildfires in the country’s west, which have burned vast tracts of forest and farmland and forced evacuations, had been brought under control after 10 days.

In a statement on Facebook, the agency said that “with the spread of the fires halted and the fire hotspots brought under control on all fronts” on Saturday, teams on the ground were working to cool down the affected areas while monitoring any signs of reignition.

The blazes in the coastal province of Latakia broke out amid an intense heatwave across the region.

The UN humanitarian agency OCHA said they destroyed about 100 square kilometers of forest and farmland.

As the fires raged, Syrian emergency workers faced tough conditions including high temperatures, strong winds, rugged mountainous terrain and the danger of explosive war remnants.

This all comes in a country worn down by years of conflict and economic crisis.

In a post on X, the Syrian minister for emergencies and disaster management, Raed Al-Saleh, said that with help from Turkish, Jordanian, Lebanese, Qatari and Iraqi teams, firefighters had “managed to halt the spread of the fire on all fronts, which is the most important step toward containing the wildfires.”

The “situation is the best it has been in the past 10 days,” Saleh said late Saturday.

“There are still threats due to wind activity, but we are working to prevent any renewed expansion of the fires,” the minister added.

The civil defense agency said rescue teams were carrying out “operations to open pathways and firebreaks within the forests... in order to reduce the chances of fire spreading in case of reignition.”

Authorities have not reported any casualties, but several towns in Latakia province have been evacuated as a precaution.

Nearly seven months after the ousting of longtime ruler Bashar Assad, Syria is still reeling from more than a decade of civil war that ravaged the country’s economy, infrastructure and public services.

With man-made climate change increasing the likelihood and intensity of droughts and wildfires worldwide, Syria has also been battered by heatwaves and low rainfall.

In June, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said that Syria had “not seen such bad climate conditions in 60 years.”


Kuwait unveils major capital market reforms to boost efficiency, attract global investments   

Kuwait unveils major capital market reforms to boost efficiency, attract global investments   
Updated 13 min 19 sec ago
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Kuwait unveils major capital market reforms to boost efficiency, attract global investments   

Kuwait unveils major capital market reforms to boost efficiency, attract global investments   

RIYADH: Kuwait has introduced a central counterparty clearing framework, upgraded brokerage standards, and streamlined settlement systems as part of a sweeping reform to modernize its capital markets and boost investor confidence. 

 

The measures, launched as part of the second stage of Phase Three of the Market Development Program, include introducing sub-account numbering to enhance transparency, as well as upgrading IT infrastructure to support future listings of exchange-traded funds and fixed-income instruments such as bonds and sukuk, according to a press release.

 

Led by Kuwait’s Capital Markets Authority in coordination with Boursa Kuwait and the Central Bank of Kuwait, the reforms aim to align the country’s financial market infrastructure with global standards while reducing risk and enhancing market depth. 

 

The Market Development Program is a strategic initiative under the country’s Vision 2035 plan, aimed at diversifying the economy, enhancing private sector participation, and modernizing key sectors such as finance, infrastructure, and technology. 

 

Mohammad Saud Al-Osaimi, CEO of Boursa Kuwait, said: “The launch of this phase reflects our unwavering commitment to developing an advanced, efficient trading environment that meets the highest international standards.”   

 

He added: “It is the product of close collaboration across the capital market apparatus and represents a key step in expanding the depth, transparency and resilience of Kuwait’s capital market.” 

  

Boursa Kuwait Chairman Bader Nasser Al-Kharafi said that the collaboration has played a vital role in advancing market infrastructure and introducing sophisticated products and services that promote a more transparent and dynamic investment environment. 

  

He added that these efforts are essential to attracting capital, generating added value for the national economy, and supporting the diversification of income sources. 

  

The measure introduced several key reforms, including the implementation of a Central Counterparty Framework to reduce settlement risks and align clearing processes with global standards.  

  

It also streamlined cash settlements through the KASSIP system, facilitating smoother transactions via local banks and the Central Bank of Kuwait. Additionally, brokerage firms were upgraded to “Qualified Broker” status to enhance market structure, while sub-account numbering was introduced to improve transparency under omnibus accounts.  

  

Furthermore, IT infrastructure upgrades were made to prepare for the introduction of ETFs and fixed-income trading, including bonds and sukuk, pending necessary legislative changes. 

  

This phase marks one of the most significant overhauls since the privatization of Boursa Kuwait, reinforcing the market’s role in driving economic growth.   

 

“We greatly value the remarkable efforts that have driven the various phases of the Market Development Program for Kuwait’s capital market, a reflection of the power of constructive cooperation between the public and private sectors, which stands as a national model for realizing economic objectives and development ambitions rooted in innovation and professionalism,” Al-Kharafi said. 

     

The CMA and Boursa Kuwait reaffirmed their commitment to further developing the market’s infrastructure, supporting sustainable growth, and reinforcing Kuwait’s status as a premier investment destination.   

  

Privatized in 2019, Boursa Kuwait operates one of the GCC’s oldest exchanges, driving market modernization and emerging-market reclassification.