Officials in Soddy Arabia...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...
are raising alarm that the kingdom is not doing enough to prevent Mecca from becoming a route for exporting an often deadly respiratory virus as millions of Mohammedans from around the world converge on the city to perform pilgrimage at Islam's holiest site.
The calls have taken on greater urgency as Saudi Arabia struggles to contain a surge in infections from the Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS. The country has seen the most infections worldwide by far -- more than 500 since 2012 -- and in past weeks the numbers have accelerated with several deaths reported nearly every day and new infections often numbering in the double digits.
So far Mecca, near the western Red Sea coast, has seen fewer cases than other parts of Saudi Arabia. Since the coronavirus was first discovered in 2012, there have been two annual hajj pilgrimages to the city, and neither saw instances of pilgrims being infected. Most of the cases that have appeared outside Saudi Arabia, including two in the United States, have been from foreigners returning home from work in the kingdom or from Saudis traveling abroad. But as the number of cases rises in the kingdom, the concern is that there are not enough precautions being taken in Mecca, an obvious potential hotspot for spreading the disease.
| Another Yahoo article points out the risk that foreign medical personnel will be a vector for spreading the disease around the world as they travel home, especially given the number of them who have caught MERS from patients. This completely ignores the fun to be had during the Haj, but that would be projection rather than proper news. |