Sky-High Vaccination Rates and Zero Taxes Make Dubai a Pandemic Boomtown – WSJ

DUBAI This city-state of skyscrapers and Persian Gulf beaches is emerging as a pandemic boomtown, drawing in the ultrarich, entrepreneurs and tourists with open-border policies, high levels of vaccination and low Covid-19 infection rates.

This year, thousands of millionaires have relocated to the city and the wider United Arab Emirates, drawn by zero income tax and relatively relaxed pandemic restrictions. The city s bars, restaurants and hotels are packed, real-estate prices have surged, workers are returning to offices, and the Expo 2020 world fair is reeling in foreign tourists.

Even as the Omicron variant rattled markets and forced border restrictions across the world, Dubai has doubled down on an open economy that welcomes an increasingly mobile international workforce. On Tuesday, the U.A.E. government said it was switching its workweek to Monday through Friday, instead of the Middle East s standard Sunday through Thursday, the latest change designed to attract more foreign businesses and expats.

via www.wsj.com

Expect to see more and more of these sort of walled cities of the rich and free.