Country: Saudi Arabia
Continent: Asia
Governing Party:++ None
Political affiliation: None
Main crisis leaders:++ His Majesty King Salman Bin Abdulaziz, His Highness Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
Status of country: Kingdom (Unitary Islamist absolute monarchy)
Cases (at time of lockdown:* 562
Deaths (at time of lockdown) Unknown; I can only find details of 1 confirmed death. Right.
Cases (at time of writing):** 547,402
Deaths (at time of writing): 8,922 (official) to 182,773 (independent estimate)
Date of first lockdown: March 23
Duration: 90 days
Number of lockdowns (to date): 1
Reaction level+++: 10
Vaccine uptake (at time of writing): 72%
Score:*** 55
I suppose there are advantages to being an absolute monarchy in a situation such as we faced with the outbreak of Covid, one being that there is no opposition party to thwart or raise a dissenting voice to your plans to tackle it - Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy, where the King has the same basic power as the likes of King Louis XIV in France in the seventeenth century, i.e., absolute - and another being that in an absolute and, let’s face it, brutally oppressive monarchy such as that practiced in Saudi Arabia, you really don’t have a choice. If the King says take your vaccine, you take your vaccine. If the King says stay at home, you better believe you’re staying home! So on the surface - and always depending on the attitude of His Majesty to the virus - this should have been a slam-dunk, as you Americans say. No protests or riots here! No disobedience, no refusal to comply, no civil disorder.
But was it like that? And did the King go with science or did he, being subject to the laws of Allah, trust in his god and sneer at vaccines, at the very Coronavirus itself? I ask, not as leading questions, or to give you the answers, but honestly, as I have, until I read it after typing this, no idea which way the Royal Family went, where they stood, which side they came down on when it came to this devilish plague that assaulted believers and infidels alike.
So let’s find out, shall we?
First of all, how did the virus get in? Well, it seems another Islamist Republic was to blame, as the first case was traced to a man returning from Iran via Bahrain (spread it around now, don’t be mean) on March 2. It took another twenty-one days before the King ordered a curfew; nobody was allowed travel within the Kingdom between the hours of 7pm and 6am. What this meant in terms of travel outside of the realm I don’t know, but you certainly could not consider it yet a lockdown. Despite this precaution, and as we have seen in other, more progressive countries, the case load grew, ballooning to 562 by March 23, and the next day to 767, at which point the Kingdom had its first death reported, that of an Afghan national. By the end of the month cases were climbing towards the 1,500 mark.
Prior to this, the King had already banned the entry of Muslims into the country who wished to visit the great shrines at Mecca and Medina, and ordered the Grand Mosque closed for daily sterilisation, and on March 19 all prayers were suspended. For an Islamic nation, this surely came as a massive blow. I mean, people here in Ireland were whining about the churches being closed, but hell, most of them would go to mass once a week, if that, other than the older generation (mostly old ladies) who might go every morning. Now imagine going several times a day, every day, and suddenly you’re prevented from doing so. I wonder, had this not been a monarchy, would unrest, to say the least, have erupted?
To make matters worse for the Muslim population, the next day the two shrines, the major mosques at Medina and Mecca were closed. I suppose consider St. Mark’s Square suddenly being made off-limits to Christians. As early as February 6 His Majesty had banned travel from his Kingdom to China. Like Lombardy in Italy, one area of the Kingdom was placed under total lockdown early, this being the Al Qatif governorate, though the rest of the Kingdom soon followed. Sports events were originally to be played behind closed doors and without spectators, though a week later these were all cancelled until further notice, as was the Saudi Olympics (what?), scheduled to have taken place at the end of March.
Interestingly, and indeed surprisingly to me anyway, it seems that even in so tightly-controlled a country as this, misinformation and disinformation found its way in, and people were arrested for spreading false information. Of course, that might have been false as in, the Palace is reporting lower numbers than there are, or something, but even so, given that maybe you could have had your tongue pulled out for such a crime possibly, it shows how passionate some people were about spreading what they believed to be the truth. Not at all surprisingly, no information is available on who or how many were arrested, what happened to them or if they were even seen again.
Rather oddly, again to me anyway, is that while other countries were putting together special packages of pandemic assistance to help those who had lost their jobs due to Covid, and in a country as filthy rich as Saudi Arabia, the King was busily cancelling the cost-of-living payment and RAISING the level of VAT! And I mean raising! Like, tripling from 5% to 15%! Might as well just drive your people out into the desert and let them die, Your Majesty! It’d be quicker. King Salman also cut public spending and seemed to think that the fall in oil prices, leading to a deficit in the Royal budget, should be taken out on his people. Would it not have made more sense to, I don’t know, sell a few of your Bentleys or a bunch of horses, your Kingship? No? What’s that big guy with the sword coming towards me… oh well, I guess you know your own people, sorry I mentioned it.
As history has shown before with the Black Death, power, status, wealth and privilege are no protection against the plague, and accordingly the Royal Court was infected, with a reported (but not confirmed) 150 members of the Royal Family fell ill. From what I read, the Saudi Royal Family numbers up to 15,000 members, though the more important ones comprise about 2,000. Even so, that’s a reasonably high percentage, indicating that perhaps the Royal Court may have been placing more of its trust in Allah than in face masks and social distancing. In the first week of April the case numbers had rocketed to around 3,000, almost doubling each week.
It should be understood of course that in an absolute monarchy details are hard to confirm, and information is tightly controlled. The last thing the King wants, presumably, is for his people to start believing that he is not in control, which would surely threaten his standing. Perhaps even factions within his own Court might endeavour to take advantage of what would be seen as weakness. I don’t know this, but if we use history as a guide, it’s usually the case: those closest to the monarch are the ones he or she need fear the most, as they are just waiting for their chance to seize power from him or her, assert their own claim to the throne. How this works, if it does, in the Saudi Royal Court I have no clue, I admit, but it does set you thinking.
Anyway, the point is that figures coming out of Saudi Arabia never could and never can be trusted; as you can see above, even now the deaths reported vary wildly between the official figures released and those calculated and reported by an independent (western) source, the Economist. So we can never be certain of the true figure, and as the pandemic raged across the world Saudi Arabia was accused of minimising the figures, downplaying the seriousness of the outbreak. This led to a mass exodus by American diplomats in July, as - official - case numbers reached 100,000. Strangely, it was at this point that the King ordered the lifting of all restrictions, effectively ending the lockdown, though mask wearing and social distancing continued to be enforced.