How Middle East public attitudes have evolved, 1 year into COVID-19 pandemic

How Middle East public attitudes have evolved, 1 year into COVID-19 pandemic

DUBAI: On March 11, 2020, just a matter of months after it first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan, outbreaks of the novel coronavirus were reported from multiple continents “” marking the start of an unprecedented health emergency and an abrupt change in daily habits. After the World Health Organization (WHO) decision to raise its alert from a scattering of localized epidemics to a full-blown pandemic, governments in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) area were quick to respond. Mandatory nationwide closures were put in place, schools and workplaces emptied, front-line workers mobilized and households ordered to stay home. Few could remember a time of such disruption or ever seeing their streets so empty. Data collected by British polling agency YouGov found that in April 2020, at the outset of the pandemic, some 75 percent of respondents across Saudi Arabia and the UAE felt "somewhat" or "very scared" of contracting the virus. This fear has generally fallen as the pandemic has worn on. To curb the spread of COVID-19, governments placed much of the onus on the general public to abide by new personal hygiene and social distancing guidelines. In the same YouGov poll, 78 percent of Saudi and UAE