Corona is ravaging in #egypt but the government still insists in all official statements that it’s doing what it can but people are not adhering to precautions. Here I debunk these statements.

1- the gov’t releases unbelievably silly statements that the rate is only hundreds of cases + 30-50 deaths daily. Signaling to people a totally false sense of security or that the virus is “under control”. These are all blatant lies.

2- The government main concern is “controlling information” not the situation. The gov’t extremely restricts pcr testing. It has the capacity for > 45,000 tests per day but they only run 5K- 15K. The @WHO urged Egypt several times to do more testing but in vain.

3- I spoke with about a dozen doctors in #Egypt since last year. The health ministry sent a protocol that tells them to restrict pcr testing & treat patients based on symptoms or at best chest x-ray & CT scans. Many hospitals don’t have CT devices to begin with.

4- those who die with strong covid19 symptoms are not considered covid deaths because the government deprives people, even medical teams, from access to testing.

5- A BBC investigation found out that there were about 60,000 deaths likely from Covid that were not registered as such in only three months in 2020. https://www.bbc.com/arabic/middleeast-55447345

6- the government wants to signal that its plan is working. But in fact there has been a very short lockdown in egypt and since it was lifted in summer 2020 the government seems to prioritize economy.

7- even for the vaccine rollout plan, things are quite chaotic. Younger ppl vaccinated before elderly and political favoritism playing out: e.g parliamentarians & their families vaccinated last week, jumping over any health criteria. https://m.elwatannews.com/news/details/5433425

8- vaccine rollout is opaque, lacks scientific planning. only about 1.5 million registered to get the vaccine and only 150K vaccinated since February. This means Egypt needs virtually decades to vaccinate a meaningful percentage of its adult population. https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/03/09/egypt-provide-equitable-covid-19-vaccine-access

9- The general apathy by people to register for vaccination is a natural result of the government signals and daily statements that the pandemic is only affecting a few in a country of 100 million. Also, reflects general lack of trust in the government & inadequate reach-out.

10- In previous crises, the government kept draining its credibility. E.g recently patients died in ICU units because of anticipated & preventable drop in hospitals oxygen supplies. No one was held accountable. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/18/world/middleeast/egypt-hospital-oxygen-covid.html