Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the number of new confirmed cases officially announced in Egypt has been at a low level among regional countries.
However, recently, the World Health Organization’s Eastern Mediterranean Region Office said that the testing methods adopted by some countries, including Egypt, have led to the official number of new cases that do not fully reflect the actual development of the epidemic in the country.
In fact, behind the Egyptian government’s decision to test only specific groups of people reflects the powerlessness and helplessness of the country in the face of the epidemic.
WHO Eastern Mediterranean Health Emergencies Steering Commissioner Richard Brennan: The Egyptian government has decided to test only those who are more likely to be infected with COVID-19. This group of people refers to
Patients who have shown severe or complex symptoms, which means that most mild and asymptomatic infections in Egypt will not be tested.
Recently, the number of new confirmed cases reported by Egypt has rebounded significantly to about 400, compared with the previous one-100 since August.
Some experts said that due to the constraints of economic development, Egypt has been trapped by limited detection capacity since the beginning of the outbreak, and cannot carry out large-scale screening at home.
Some analysts said that although there is a need to continue to expand the scale of testing, large-scale testing is likely to lead to a large increase in the number of confirmed cases, which will undoubtedly put the Egyptian government in a dilemma, because the Egyptian economy is no longer able to withstand a new round of closures and shutdowns.
Therefore, it can be said that the Egyptian government’s approach to testing only patients with obvious symptoms is really a helpless move out of practical difficulties.
Egypt imposed a curfew at the end of March this year to control the spread of the epidemic, but the curfew had to end at the end of June due to the overburdened economy.
Although the government has introduced a series of measures to try to boost the economy, Egypt’s economic recovery remains slow and difficult as many pillar industries, including tourism, have been hit hard by the epidemic.
In addition, some economic data also show that the future is not optimistic. Egyptian enterprises’ expectations of future production index hit the lowest level on record in November, and the employment index has contracted for 13 consecutive months.
Egyptian private owner Amre Hassan: Due to the impact of the epidemic, this year is the worst year of business for so many years. Our store suffered heavy losses during the government’s curfew. If we do it again, we will really close down.
