Saudi Arabia said Saturday it was lifting most covid restrictions
including social distancing in public spaces and quarantine for vaccinated
arrivals, moves that could facilitate the arrival of Muslim pilgrims.
The decision includes suspending "social distancing
measures in all open and closed places" including mosques, the official
Saudi Press Agency cited an interior ministry source as saying.
Masks will only be required in closed spaces, according to
the decision, which came into effect on Saturday.
The Saudi kingdom, which is home to Islam's two holiest
places in Makkah and Madinah, will no longer require vaccinated travelers to
provide a negative PCR or rapid test before their arrival in the kingdom or to
quarantine, SPA said.
The Covid-19 pandemic has hugely disrupted Muslim
pilgrimages, which are usually key revenue earners for the kingdom, bringing in
some $12 billion annually.
Hosting the pilgrimages is a matter of prestige for Saudi
rulers, for whom the custodianship of Islam's holiest sites is their most
powerful source of political legitimacy.
In 2021, the coronavirus outbreak forced Saudi authorities
to dramatically downsize the hajj for a second year, and just 60,000 fully
vaccinated citizens and residents of the kingdom took part.
Since the start of the pandemic, Saudi Arabia has
registered more than 746,000 coronavirus cases, 9,000 of them fatal, in a
population of some 34 million.