COVID-19 pandemic in Saudi Arabia

The COVID-19 pandemic in Saudi Arabia is part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first case in the kingdom was confirmed by the Ministry of Health on 2 March 2020 and in the following months, the kingdom held the highest number of confirmed cases in the Arab states of the Persian Gulf.

The kingdom announced the suspension of all domestic and international travel on March 21; domestic travel was reinitiated on May 21. After curfews and lockdowns were placed on several administrative levels, the number of daily confirmed cases shrunk dramatically and by June 21, all curfews were lifted through a three-phase program enacted throughout the country, except the city of Mecca. By mid-July, the kingdom was seeing more daily recoveries than cases. The Hajj took place with only 10,000 socially-distanced pilgrims allowed to take part in the annual pilgrimage, which fell during the last week of July and the first week of August.

The economy of Saudi Arabia also suffered a heavy impact; a budget deficit of 9 billion US dollars was reported in the first quarter of 2020 caused by the decline in oil prices and the economic effects of the pandemic. Several measures were taken to help stimulate the economy, including increasing the value-added tax from 5% to 15%, effective 1 July, and cutting spending by 100 billion riyals (US$26,600,000,000). As of September 7, 2020, there had been a little over 320,000 confirmed cases with more than 4,000 deaths attributed to the virus in the kingdom, and international air travel was still suspended. A budget deficit of 40.768 billion riyals was posted by the government in its third quarter of 2020, which was reportedly more than half of the deficit calculated in the previous quarter. The change in figures resulted following the spike in non-oil revenue, which kicked off a continued fall in oil income. The government estimated that the economy would shrink by a further 3.8% in the remaining months of 2020 due to the impact of the coronavirus crisis on the global demand for crude oil. Riyadh planned to cut its spending in 2021 to 990 billion riyals. The Economist estimated excess deaths during the pandemic—likely to have been due to covid—at between 14,000 and 99,000.