Yes, numbers in Egypt may have plummeted, restaurants may have reopened, and people may no longer be obsessed with hand-washing and mask-wearing, but we are still living through a global pandemic. On 4 September, 2020, Worldometers recorded over 300,000 new cases worldwide, the highest number of infections recorded in a single day since SARS-CoV-2 first broke out. In August, Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly and Health Minister Hala Zayed both warned against the danger of Egyptians being lulled into a false sense of security due to the low number of daily infections. And yet simultaneously, ‘coexistence’ with the virus in Egypt has, in practice, almost meant a full return to the pre-pandemic normal. Egypt and the Pandemic The truth is that Egypt’s case with the coronavirus is a curious one. From the beginning of the outbreak, numbers of cases and deaths were low, coming as a fraction of numbers recorded in countries with comparable circumstances and population sizes. Many feared that these numbers, though on the rise, may not fully represent the spread of the virus given the limited numbers of administered tests. The last official tally of testing numbers, made…
Newsflash, COVID-19 Isn’t Over: A Guide to the State of the Pandemic in Egypt
September 7, 2020
