Pilgrimage in a pandemic: lessons from Mecca on containing Covid-19

An innovative intervention was the use of mobile apps to record, track and monitor all Covid-19 related personal records including test results and vaccination status

As a Muslim, at least once a year I go on pilgrimage to Mecca, Islam’s holiest city, located in Saudi Arabia. Muslims perform the short “Umrah” pilgrimage at any time of the year, and there could be over 19 million pilgrims each year. I have also been to Mecca a couple of times for “Hajj” – the annual major pilgrimage. Held once a year, this is a mass gathering of over 2.5 million Muslims.

Both the Umrah and Hajj pilgrimages weren’t possible for most of 2020 due to the outbreak of the