The CMT and the EOC established in response to the COVID-19 crisis continue to take action and wish to provide the following updates.

We wish to inform the community that three new confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been identified on the KAUST campus. The cases have been confirmed positive by the Ministry of Health (MoH) and have been transferred to nominated facilities in Jeddah. We are keeping in touch with them and monitoring their progress. We wish each of these community members well.

New curfew arrangements are now in place in Jeddah. The following curfew measures aimed at preventing the spread of COVID-19 come into place at KAUST on Wednesday, April 8 at 6:00 a.m. They are as follows: 

Vulnerable groups and their households are strongly encouraged to remain in their homes at all times. KAUST Health remote support and Tamimi shopping delivery are in place to support these groups. If you are in this group and need to utilize the online ordering system, please contact coronavirustaskforce@kaust.edu.sa.

Tamimi is open from 6:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. using the current managed access. One person per household can go into the store. With appropriately managed shopper density and social distancing, this allows around 1,000 visits a day. 

After 3:00 p.m., Tamimi staff and KAUST volunteers will pick/pack/deliver shopping for vulnerable groups and quarantine locations. Please note that orders placed by vulnerable groups and quarantine locations are triaged to ensure people are eligible for delivery and that order size is appropriate. 

KAUST Health services will remain accessible upon phone triage and by booked appointments. The ER is open 24/7. Read more

Restaurants will still continue to offer pick-up and delivery services. After 3:00 p.m., orders will be delivery only.

Community members who need to leave their houses for a necessary reason should go out between 6:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. Strict adherence to social distancing is mandatory. Community members must stay with their families only or the people with whom they share a house. No group gatherings are allowed. 

 

We would like to assure the community that feature updates and security patches are regularly pushed to secure your business machines.

Regarding Zoom, we are working very closely with the vendor and have ensured that all of the security flaws have been highlighted for Zoom security. However, these only apply to users integrating with Facebook and using Zoom for free and not to your KAUST Premium Enterprise account; this is fully integrated with our Active Directory to secure your credentials and was patched in their most recent update that we pushed to your business machines last week. If you would like to check to ensure you are running the latest version, check Zoom’s blog article here. 

Once again, we’d like to thank you for your cooperation and ongoing adherence to directives. These have been designed to keep you safe and to help manage the crisis.

Chris Sealey
Vice President, Community Life