Bald zwei Millionen Corvid-19 Infektionen in Syrien?

Auch wenn das Regime weiter das Ausmaß der Katastrophe zu leugnen versucht: In Syrien verbreitet sich Corona offenbar in rasender Geschwindigkeit.

Im Netz kursieren inzwischen die Namen von über fünfzig Ärzten, die beim Kampf gegen die Pandemie selbst gestorben sein sollen und Berichten aus vom Regime kontrollierten Gebieten zeichnen ein düsteres Bild:

Since doctors and health officials are reluctant to report the real numbers, various officials and public figures are commenting on the uncontrollable situation in the country. Ahmad Rafeh, a well-known actor who was diagnosed with the virus that causes COVID-19 and was treated at a public hospital, said in an Aug. 9 interview that there are about 60 daily deaths related to the virus.

Despite the absence of reliable data, a policy memo released by the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) anticipates that the current infection rate could lead to 2 million cases in the country by the end of August.

The policy memo provides four different scenarios, specifically for the month of August, where the number of cases can vary according to containment measures and public awareness. It also estimates the actual number of currently infected cases to be around 35,500.

In the first scenario, public awareness slowly increases but no effective containment measures would be adopted by the government, leading to a macro-level spread of 2 million cases and 119,000 deaths.

“The Syrian government should impose a complete lockdown including the closure of all economic activities except the essential ones,” Zaki Mehchy, a researcher at LSE and leading author of the memo, told Al-Monitor. “In fact, the government did adopt strict mitigation measures in April for a few weeks when the number of cases was still relatively low. But it seems that the government has its reasons not to implement such measures again now."