Syria in Context Investigation : COVID-19 Spreads out of Control in Damascus

Syria in Context Investigation: COVID-19 Spreads out of Control in Damascus - Syria in context

The COVID-19 outbreak in government-controlled areas of Syria is now out of control and overwhelming the limited capacities of the war-torn country’s health care sector. In today’s update, Syria in Context estimates that over the past week, the Damascus region alone likely suffered hundreds of excess deaths attributable to Coronavirus, suggesting that tens of thousands of residents of the capital may have already been infected. These estimates, based on local reporting and our own supplemental investigations, outpace the official numbers released by the Syrian Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization (WHO), which record a mere 944 confirmed cases and 48 deaths, by orders of magnitude. Local health services, suffering shortages of protection equipment (PPE) and tests, as well as rampant corruption, are already overwhelmed.

As it becomes increasingly clear that the virus is far more prevalent than is being reported, an urgent increase in supplies and a radical change in approach to mitigating the outbreak, as well as increased transparency, are needed to prevent the growing catastrophe.

#Covid-19#Syrie#Damas#Secondevague#Pandémie#migrant#migration

▻https://tande.substack.com/p/syria-in-context-investigation-covid