If you think that getting a COVID-19 vaccine in your country would prove difficult or will require you to wait for an indefinite period of time, maybe the Maldives is the answer to your problems. Maldivian Tourism Minister Abdulla Mausoom recently spoke in an interview with CNBC about updates on Maldives’ COVID-19 vaccination programme and how they’re planning to welcome more foreign tourists back.
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Here’s what we know so far
According to Mausoom, the Maldives will aim to provide COVID-19 vaccinations to foreign tourists after all their locals have been fully vaccinated. They’re calling this tourism campaign “3V”, which stands for “Visit, Vaccinate, Vacation.” As of writing, over half of Maldives’ population has received at least one dose of their COVID-19 vaccines; this includes 90% of their tourism industry’s frontline workers.
“The main idea of tourism being open is to provide reasonably safe tourism with minimum inconvenience. So once the country gets vaccinated, then we will move on to ‘3V’ tourism,” the tourism minister explained. When asked about Maldives’ capability to supply COVID-19 vaccinations to both locals and foreign tourists, Mausoom confirmed that the Maldives would have sufficient vaccines thanks to the donations mainly coming from China and India, and because of the country’s small population which accounts for less than 600,000 residents.
That said, the tourism minister also said that the government’s priority is to secure the safety of their locals first and foremost as they still await for more vaccines to be delivered to their shores. Because of this, Maldives is yet to give any timeline or date as to when they’re going to begin the 3V campaign for foreign tourists.
For now, Maldives will welcome all foreign tourists who have been fully vaccinated and who can present a negative PCR test no more than three days prior to their arrival in the Maldives. The Maldives aims to receive 1.5 million tourists arrivals by the end of 2021.
Featured image credit: Ahmen Yaaniu | Unsplash