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Saudi Arabia hosted its second annual hajj pilgrimage under covid-19 restrictions this week, limiting attendees to just 60,000 pilgrims. Only vaccinated individuals from inside Saudi Arabia were selected, a tiny fraction of the nearly 2.5 million pilgrims that attended in 2019.
Last year, a few thousand were allowed into Islam’s holiest site in Mecca and Medina to perform the hajj, a five-day rite each Muslim must perform at least once in a lifetime.
Here are some significant developments:
- England on Monday lifted almost all of its remaining coronavirus restrictions, including an indoor mask mandate, even as new cases soared to some of the highest levels in months and several senior government officials — including Prime Minister Boris Johnson — were in quarantine.
- An alternate for the U.S. women’s gymnastics team tested positive for the coronavirus Monday, in the first known case among Team USA athletes who traveled to Tokyo for the Olympic Games. Three South African soccer players also tested positive at Tokyo’s Olympic Village over the weekend.
- Australian officials said Monday that they were extending a lockdown in Victoria state, including the city of Melbourne, after detecting more locally transmitted coronavirus cases. State Premier Daniel Andrews did not say how long the restrictions would be in force.
- More than 80 percent of some 300 personnel aboard a South Korean destroyer in the Gulf of Aden have tested positive for the coronavirus, Reuters reported Monday, citing the country’s military leadership. Authorities sent aircraft to replace the crew, which was on an anti-piracy mission.
- Iran’s government Monday announced a week-long lockdown in the capital, Tehran, and surrounding areas to halt the spread of a growing coronavirus outbreak officials have blamed on the more contagious delta variant.
- Indonesia, facing what experts call a “catastrophic” coronavirus surge as the delta variant rips through hospitals, is now recording some of the highest daily case numbers in the world, outpacing global pandemic hot spots such as India and Brazil. On Monday, the Southeast Asian nation reported a record 1,338 new coronavirus deaths.
Residents of Saudi Arabia between the ages 18 and 65 who have been fully vaccinated or immunized against the virus and do not suffer from chronic diseases, were allowed to apply for the hajj pilgrimage through an online portal. More than half a million tried.
Images and videos from the pilgrimage showed just a handful of white- or black-clad individuals surrounding the Kaaba, a black cube building at the heart of the Grand Mosque around which pilgrims circumambulate.
In past years, the crowds poured out of every nook and cranny, a human sea of worshipers. This year, the comparatively low number of socially distanced pilgrims made their rounds according to colored lines laid on the cooled marble floor.
Masked Muslims stood on Mount Arafat on Monday, where pilgrims gather to pray and atone for their sins.
Before the pandemic, more than 2 million pilgrims would flock to the hill, packed tightly together in the burning Saudi heat. The image of the spread-out pilgrims is shocking for those accustomed to the closely packed crowds.
Every year, fears of stampedes would abound as the government tries to organize the pilgrimage to prevent catastrophes like that of 2015, when a stampede killed more than 700, according to official numbers.
In recent weeks, Saudi Arabia has amped up its restrictions on travel outside the kingdom. On Monday, the Ministry of Interior announced that Saudi citizens will need to have had two coronavirus vaccine doses before they can travel abroad, starting Aug. 9. The country has campaigned to encourage citizens and residents to take the vaccines, opening nearly 600 vaccination sites across the kingdom.
Earlier in the month, it barred travel to and entry from several countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, Vietnam and Afghanistan.
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