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With a population of 11.7 million, Tunisia has already seen more than 558,000 cases of Covid-19 since last year
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This has resulted in 18,052 deaths so far
Tourists are flocking to the North African country of Tunisia despite the country seeing a surge in the number of Covid-19 cases, sad local reports on Friday, July 23.
The country with a population of 11.7 million has already seen more than 558,000 cases of Covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic last year, and 18,052 of those cases have resulted in deaths.
However, most of those infections and deaths happened during an especially aggressive surge of case numbers earlier this month.
The highest number of cases was 9,286 on July 10. The largest number of deaths, 205 in all, was on July 16.
Now, as the numbers wane, the seven-day average of new cases per day still stands at more than 4,500.
Despite that, tourists are continuing to visit the country, including its Mediterranean resort of Sousse, said the local reports.
Stéphanie Wilwert, a vaccinated French tourist living in Luxembourg, was quoted by the reports as saying: “We are with a tour operator, we get off the plane we are in a bus, gel, disinfecting and the mask. He drops us off at the hotel, I didn’t see myself risking much. But there is no such thing as zero risk, and I said to myself: ‘If I find myself there in quarantine with the little one…,’ but the desire to come back here was too strong.”
The reports quoted Russian tourists Lisa Kaurova and Nikita Shirokov — both doctors in Moscow and vaccinated — as saying: “It’s not a problem for us. It’s a problem for the people, but not for us because there are lots of measures, there are a lot of antiseptics so we’re not worried.”
Tourism operators are also saying they have taken precautionary measures for their clients.
The reports quoted Nizar Marghli, director of the hotel Sentido Bellevue Park in Sousse, as saying: “We have trained the staff for the good practice of the health protocols, we have reduced our occupation to less than 50%, we have put a lot of sanitizing gel dispensers everywhere in the hotel, in the restaurants, bars, at the entrance of every floor and in the elevators.”
Meanwhile, even though France has put Tunisia on its travel “red list,” fully-vaccinated tourists from the European country are reportedly still making the trip.
