Covid-19: Saudi Arabia now has the world's toughest vaccine rules

Few countries have imposed restrictions as tight as those in Saudi Arabia, where refusal to vaccinate can block shoppers from grocery stores

A security guard stands at the entrance to every mall in Saudi Arabia’s capital, ready for a pandemic routine shoppers are getting used to: proving their vaccination status on a government phone app that tracks their location at all times.

A dystopia for opponents of vaccine requirements from the United States to France is already a reality in Saudi Arabia, which enacted what amount to some of the strictest immunisation rules in the world on August 1. 

As the highly-contagious Delta variant of Covid-19 sends other countries back into lockdown, officials in the world’s largest crude exporter are counting on a strategy