Middle East countries prepare drastic measures against coronavirus
Iran’s coronavirus by the numbers
Middle Eastern countries have been preparing to use all means necessary to stop the spread of coronavirus. Since the pandemic first arrived in Iran in mid-February, many countries in the region have looked on with growing fear as their local cases increase.
The countries in the region face several hurdles. Some of them are either poor or recovering from conflict, such as Iraq and Syria, and some remain divided, such as Libya and Yemen, making it difficult to have national coronavirus policies. Many lack means to test for the virus.
Some of the most serious measures have been taken in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, Jordan and the Gulf states. Jordan in recent days put in place one of the strictest curfews in the world, sending the army to enforce stoppages and ordering pharmacies to deliver rather than let people come to the counter.
Jordan is considering various means of providing food to the needy, including distributing some 100,000 food parcels. In a country with almost a million Syrian refugees, as well as those from Iraq and elsewhere, it is difficult to see how the population can stay at home for weeks without a crisis.
The Gulf was better prepared for the crises. Most Gulf states have sealed their borders and cut down on air traffic. Their main concern is the spread of the virus among their large foreign-worker populations. They have better healthcare systems than other countries in the region, but their cases have almost doubled in the last week.
Saudi Arabia, despite acting early to prevent pilgrimages, now has 500 cases. Tiny Qatar and Bahrain have almost 500 cases and 330 cases, respectively. The UAE, Kuwait and Oman may have done better, with only a few hundred cases among them, but they are worried. Kuwait has suspended all sports activity, and the emir gave a speech on Sunday praising the country’s steadfastness.
Of greater concern is what is happening in Libya, Yemen and parts of Iraq and Syria where there may not be testing. The Syrian regime’s SANA said the first case had been found on Sunday, but there may be other cases in areas outside its control. That includes eastern Syria, where people are angry that the international community has not helped them with testing kits, and in northern Syria, which is controlled by Turkey.
In Yemen there appears to be very little the international community can do. The country is in the midst of a civil war in which rival parts are supported by Iran and Saudi Arabia. Iran has already shown itself negligent at testing for the virus.
Lebanon has a financial crisis on its hands. It is trying to prevent the spread of the virus after having also enabled Iranian flights to Beirut and not checking Hezbollah members who may be spreading it due to their connections to Iran. Lebanon wants to take the virus more seriously and is worried it may have acted too late.
Iraq also has a financial crisis and lacks a new prime minister. The Kurdistan region has largely locked itself down and cut itself off from the rest of Iraq, hoping to prevent the virus from spreading. But the extreme measures in the Kurdish provinces have not stopped the virus entirely, showing that even extreme measures don’t prevent all infections.
Turkey is also on the front line after weeks of claiming it was virus-free. Today there are more than 1,200 cases, and it is considering harsher curfews to stop the pandemic. However, it is unclear if the measures will have the desired effect.
In Egypt a growing, young and poor population is susceptible to the virus. It is unclear if the government can test all those who need tests. Two generals in the army reportedly died from the virus in recent days, raising concerns that the problem is more widespread than officially reported.
Egypt says it has just over 300 cases in a country of almost 100 million. Its problem is that it has an insurgency in Sinai and a porous border with Libya. It is unclear if it is even possible to test and monitor all those in rural areas for the virus in such a large and complex country.
Iran is continuing its downward spiral as the coronavirus pandemic ravages its society. All Iranian media are now focusing on the virus, with various reports about attempts to fight it, the weakness of the Iranian economy in the face of the disaster and information for the public about the virus and methods to fight it.
An alarming report at ISNA media in Iran sheds light on the disaster. These are official reports that reflect the regime narrative but still illustrate what has happened and the concerns of officials about how bad it will get.
The report says more than three million people recently have traveled to virus-hit areas. The virus came to Iran from China via Qom and Tehran. It has not affected peripheral areas or minority communities as much as the heartland.
An adviser to the Health Ministry said the country has set up a cross-sector coordination base named for Qasem Soleimani. More than 6,000 nurses and doctors have been sent to five hospitals specifically for fighting the pandemic and are supported by the army and the IRGC.
There will be 20 new temporary clinics set up with the army’s support across the country, 100,000 liters of disinfectant have been gathered and 6,000 more beds created for victims of the crisis.
The Health Ministry wants to screen up to 38 million people, although it is not clear how it can accomplish this task. Iran is getting some aid to fight the virus, but not enough. It claims it is performing 6,000 tests a day and has done 58,000 in total.
The Health Ministry, acting on the supreme leader’s orders, has been wasting its time trying to determine if the virus is a “biological attack” that was created by the United States. It has devoted resources to researching this, the ISNA report said. It believes, according to conspiracy theories put out by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that the virus may be specifically targeting Iranians through some kind of gene or DNA manipulation that makes them susceptible. This nonsense theory was put forward by government spokesmen, apparently as a way to deflect from their own failures to confront the virus in February.
Meanwhile, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has rejected US aid as a “big lie.” In Tehran province, orders have gone out to close most nonessential industries. The presidential order seeks to keep convenience stores and supermarkets and pharmacies open while closing other industries. With 1,800 official deaths and 23,000 infected, the country is also advising citizens not to attend funerals.
The country is still trying to weave together several narratives at once. The Foreign Ministry has asked for relief from US sanctions, arguing they are immoral during the crisis. The country refuses US assistance while at the same time the supreme leader says the disease is a biological weapon used by the US against Iran. In line with the IRGC’s and supreme leader’s views, the media linked to these narratives, such as Tasnim, print reports about the virus being a “CIA plot” and “biological weapon.”
The Health Ministry must confront complaints from average people that it misled them about the danger in February. A recent statement by the ministry said it was unaware of rumors that the virus had come to Qom on February 6. In fact, the ministry denied the virus was a problem until after the February 21 elections, by which time up to 1,000 people were infected.