Saudi Arabia announces exemptions to COVID-19 shopping malls ban

RIYADH: Under-18s who had not received a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine jab and those exempt for health reasons will still be allowed into Saudi commercial outlets and shopping malls when strict new rules come into force.
The government announced on Sunday that unvaccinated individuals would not be given access to such establishments from Aug. 1.
However, on Monday, a Ministry of Commerce spokesman said the ban would not apply to those under the age of 18 who had not been inoculated or people at risk of having adverse reactions to COVID-19 vaccines.
Around 15.9 million anti-virus jabs have so far been administered in the Kingdom, but the Ministry of Interior has demanded that individuals entering shops and other commercial outlets must have had at least one dose or been vaccinated after recovering from COVID-19 unless they fell into age brackets or groups not obligated to take the vaccine. Eman Al-Shethry, a government employee, told Arab News: “Entering a shopping center knowing that most of the people inside are either fully or partially vaccinated will make me feel safer and more relaxed.

“I feel that when the people who are skeptical of vaccinations see others roaming around freely, they would see that vaccines are not scary or harmful.”
Dr. Osama Ghanem Al-Obaidy, a law professor at the Institute of Public Administration in Riyadh, said: “The banning of unvaccinated individuals from entering malls is a welcome move in the fight against the coronavirus. The exemption of children from such requirements is also a welcome move.”
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia on Monday recorded 1,109 new COVID-19 cases, meaning that 466,906 people in the country had now contracted the disease. A total of 10,075 cases remained active, of which 1,596 patients were in critical condition.
With 18 more virus-related fatalities, the death toll has risen to 7,590.
The Saudi Ministry of Health said another 1,148 patients had recovered from the disease, increasing the total number of recoveries in the Kingdom to 449,241.
Saudi Arabia had so far conducted 20,438,923 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, with 83,368 carried out in the past 24 hours, and 15,885,754 people in the country had to date received a jab against COVID-19.