'It's like Judgment Day': Syrians Recount Horror of an Underreported COVID-19 Outbreak ... - 0 views
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Interviews with doctors and the testimonies of patients and residents living in Syria paint a grim picture of a populace, already battered by nine years of war, now struggling to grapple with a pandemic that has cut short many more lives than those disclosed in official statistics.
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Cornered by a collapsing economy, widespread poverty, sanctions, and a shortage of medical supplies and protective equipment after nearly a decade of conflict, Syria appears to be headed into a desultory experiment with herd immunity.
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“The way the Syrian government is dealing with corona reminds me of those who leave their houses wearing shorts and t-shirts when it is actually freezing outside,” he said. “What is the point they are trying to make? Should everyone give them a round of applause for not having a lot of corona cases? It’s a pandemic that has hit everywhere, even the most stable and developed countries.”
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For almost two months after the first case was announced in Syria, official figures showed limited circulation of the virus, with under 50 cases by mid-May. At the time of this writing, that figure had risen to 4,457 cases in territories run by the government, 1,072 in rebel-controlled areas in northwestern Syria, and 1,998 in northeast Syria, where a predominantly Kurdish de facto autonomous administration is in charge. Only 192 deaths have been registered by the Ministry of Health.
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“The government doesn’t really know how many COVID-19 cases there are, and it does not seem invested in trying to find out.”
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Between March 2011 and February 2020, at least 595 attacks targeted 350 medical facilities in the country,
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A list bearing the names of 61 health care workers who died of COVID-19 in Syria circulated on social media in August. The death of five doctors and one pharmacist in Aleppo on the same day, Aug. 14, sparked an uproar among residents
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An outbreak in Damascus’ Al-Assad University Hospital landed even its director-general in the ICU in August, according to a statement published by the hospital’s administration. A month later, Mohammad Makhlouf, father of businessman Rami Makhlouf and the man who built the Assad family’s financial and business empires during the era of Hafez al-Assad, died of COVID-19 in that same hospital.
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“I almost think that the government is letting the pandemic get out of hand in order to reduce the population because it can no longer provide for it,” said one restaurant owner in Aleppo.
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Even though there is no evidence the government is deliberately adopting such a strategy, it illustrates what many residents of Syria, even ones who support the government, have been reduced to believing as panic spreads.
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In quarantine centers, which housed suspected domestic COVID-19 cases as well as ones coming from abroad including hundreds of repatriated citizens, people were jammed together in small rooms and forced to share unsanitary utilities. Karam, an administrative assistant at a cash transfer agency, was taken to a center in the Damascus countryside upon his return from Baghdad, where he had to sleep on unwashed sheets and pillowcases.“It was a nightmare. I got out of that place 14 days later with a negative test result, only to go seek out another test because I was certain that I contracted the virus in that place,” Karam said.
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A doctor in Latakia reported that many Syrians are ashamed of admitting that they have COVID-19 symptoms, and do not want to be ostracized.
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Many Syrians have adopted the attitude that, because they survived years of brutal civil war, they shouldn’t worry too much about the coronavirus. Others espouse conspiracy theories that originated in the West, such as the idea that the global lockdowns were instituted to facilitate 5G installation. Some conspiracy theories were spread by official channels. A state-run radio station reported that people should not worry about the virus because it loses potency in the Middle East’s hot climate.
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In Idlib in the northwest, where Turkey-backed opposition forces hold sway, the outbreak continues to grow, albeit at a slower pace. The northwest is home to vulnerable populations of internal refugees who cannot adhere to social distancing or adequate handwashing in crowded camps. The region has also lost many of its medical centers and health care workers due to Russian and Syrian regime airstrikes over the past few years.