Earlier on Sunday, Japan’s handball team arrived at Cairo International Airport to participate in the 27th Men’s Handball World Championship in Egypt.

Photos show that the Japanese team wore face masks and were received by not only officials wearing face masks but also medics who measured the team members’ temperatures after coming down from their plane.

The reception of the Japanese team comes as the Cairo International airport braces itself to receive 30 other teams in the upcoming days.

According to officials, the airport allocated a whole arrival hall exclusively for the teams with restrictive protective measures to curb any outbreak or spread of the coronavirus.

The 27th Handball World Championship will be held in Cairo from 13 to 31 January in Cairo, Giza, and Alexandria, amid the impending peak of the second wave of the coronavirus.

Nevertheless, spectators’ seating has been reduced to only 30 percent capacity to limit exposure to players and audiences.  

In conjunction with the tournament, the coming weeks will witness the beginning of mass COVID-19 vaccination in the country, with medical teams and the chronically sick pegged to receive the vaccine first.  

On Saturday, Egypt passed China’s Sinopharm vaccine, which it received last month after being part of its clinical tests for months.

Egypt is considered the third Arab country to approve the urgent use of the Chinese vaccine after the UAE and Bahrain, as well as the fourth country worldwide after the Gulf and Singapore.

China approved its own-state-owned vaccine three days ago.

Nevertheless, the Egyptian government authorised both the ministries of health and finance to start talks to secure millions of doses of both the Pfizer BioNtech and Oxford AstraZeneca vaccines in the upcoming weeks for Egypt.

Egypt has officially registered 140,878 cases of coronavirus, including 113,480 fully recovered patients and 7,741 fatalities.

According to the numbers of the Egyptian Medical Syndicate, the medical sector alone witnessed no less than 10,000 cases of coronavirus, including 269 doctors who died due to COVID-19 to this day.

The ministers of health and higher education, as well as other health officials have admitted that the numbers of cases of coronavirus are more than what is officially registered, as most cases prefer to receive treatment at home currently.

According to the official numbers, Cairo, Giza, Alexandria, and Qalioubiya — Egypt’s most populated governorates — have the highest numbers of cases since February.

Unlike the first wave in the spring and summer of 2020, the Egyptian government is not resorting to partial lockdown as it has done before. Rather, it is following a different approach for the time being.

On Sunday, the government began to impose a EGP 50 fine on people not wearing face masks publicly, especially in metro stations and buses. In the past, the fine was EGP 4,000.

Last week, based on presidential directive, Egyptian Prime minister Mostafa Madbouly issued a decree, postponing exams for the first semester in schools and universities till the end of the mid-year vacation.

The mid-year vacation is set for 16 January - 20 February.

The cabinet also ordered the remaining classes in the first semester of the current academic year to take place online starting Saturday.

The decisions come after a noticeable increase in the spread of the coronavirus among children in the second wave compared to first one, according to Awad Tag El-Din, the presidential adviser for health.

It also comes after concerned parents took to social media to voice their disapproval of children going to schools in the current conditions.

Despite there being no lockdown, many public and private institutions, including banks and ministries returned to the rotation system to limit the number of employees.

Egyptian Churches have also reimposed preventive measures, cancelling Sunday schools and events.

Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Church will have a limit to the number of participants in the Christmas and Epiphany masses at each church to a maximum of 20 people only, in addition to the churches’ priests.

The Coptic Orthodox Christmas is on 7 January.

Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Church announced that it will ban visits to cemeteries this Christmas.

The religious endowment ministry, which supervises mosques nationwide, warned that it would close down any mosque not abiding by its two main rules: Wearing masks and imposing social distancing.

Al-Nour Mosque, the famous Abbasiya mosque, was the first to be closed down for a week for breaking the rules.

Up till now, Egypt has not recorded the existence of the mutant COVID-19 strain as of yet, however, it did not stop flights going to and from any of the countries that have reported it.