Kuwait Times, Thursday, Aug 19, 2021 | Muharram 10, 1443
Cabinet OKs direct flights with six nations, airport capacity boosted
Kuwait:
The Cabinet yesterday
decided to resume direct commercial flights with Bangladesh, Egypt, India,
Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, whose nationals make up some 70 percent of
residents in Kuwait, after months of suspension because of the coronavirus
pandemic. Government spokesman Tareq Al-Mazrem said the decision is conditional
to complying with regulations to be decided by the ministerial coronavirus
emergency committee.
Barring Nepal, the other five nations have the
biggest communities in Kuwait among residents. Together, the six nations have
around 2.3 million people in Kuwait, out of a total expat population of 3.3
million. Flights with many countries had been suspended several months ago as
part of Kuwait’s measures to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
The Cabinet also allowed residents who have
received unapproved vaccinations outside the country – namely Sinopharm, Sinovac
and Sputnik V – to enter Kuwait, provided they take one more dose of one of the
four approved vaccinations in Kuwait – Pfizer-BioNTech, Oxford-AstraZeneca,
Moderna and Johnson & Johnson.
The health ministry has reported a steady decline
in the number of new cases and patients in hospitals and intensive care units.
The number of new cases reported by the health ministry has been below 400 for
the past five days, a sharp decline from the past weeks. There are only 398
patients in hospitals and 182 patients in intensive care units, way down from
numbers in the past weeks.
Just 14 deaths have been reported in the past five
days, also a sharp decline from the past. Local media said the resumption of
flights will start from Sunday. Al-Jarida Arabic daily also reported that the
Cabinet has agreed to increase Kuwait airport’s capacity from 10,000 passengers
to 15,000 passengers daily.