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President Sisi says god delivered us from Coronavirus far better than many countries despite public's lack of adherence to guidelines
A thread on official memory & why we'll never know real toll of Covid on Egypt. As I clarify below, Sisi far from only leader to warrant critique https://twitter.com/ElwatanNews/status/1361609583685496832
A thread on official memory & why we'll never know real toll of Covid on Egypt. As I clarify below, Sisi far from only leader to warrant critique https://twitter.com/ElwatanNews/status/1361609583685496832
The govt seems to deliberately avoid accurately count toll of Covid. It only includes tests conducted by state which are extremely hard to get. Private tests are not counted & for most Egyptians are prohibitively expensive. Officials admit they're undercounting by several fold.
Official stats on mortality show there were roughly 60,000 excess deaths from May to July in 2020 during the first surge. The official death toll for entire past year is just 10,050. Egypt is coming off of a second, and by most accounts, worse surge now https://www.bbc.com/arabic/middleeast-55447345
IF latest surge only as bad as first this may still mean a death toll in excess of 120,000 Egyptians which wouldn't make Egypt world's worst performer but close to many other worst hit countries as death toll would exceed 0.12% of population despite its much younger population
The reality is we'll likely never know the true toll. Throughout the pandemic Egyptians have had to rely on one another as govt offered little reliable info & despite the police state being adept at jailing critics, it was often far less interested in enforcing mask requirements
Most Egyptians learn the scale of the death toll primarily through social media where many grimly remark that Facebook has felt like an obituary section of a newspaper over the past few months.
At the beginning of the pandemic we saw an impressively serious response, shutting schools, universities and airspace long before others, along with imposing a curfew much earlier than in Europe, but at some point the govt seemed to give up on containing the spread.
With its limited resources, Egypt was never going to be able to mount the response wealthy countries were capable of, but officials appear to have let perfect be the enemy of good and went from robust restrictions to very few, & with even less enforcement.
They prioritized keeping economy running & largely left virus to tear through society with weddings & film festivals offering regular super spreader opportunities. Efforts to offset cost of closures & econ slowdown were insufficient as infrastructure for welfare is underdeveloped
The challenge was exacerbated by fact that poverty in Egypt has been on the rise for decades & after years of austerity, roughly 60% of Egyptians are near or below the poverty line. Staying home without direct assistance was impossible, but that didn't mean nothing could be done
In recent report @IMFNews cited official death toll with no caveats, Even the health minister admits its inaccurate. They praise econ growth, which was fueled in part by avoiding potentially life saving restrictions. Many likely paid with their lives for this year's GDP growth
There were policies available to govt that would have had a limited impact on economy but could have helped lower the risk of transmission & impress upon the public the seriousness of the threat. Costs could have been offset with delays on unncessary spending on vanity projects
Masking rules could have been enforced far more reliably. The seriousness of the issue could have been emphasized with the cancellation of large gatherings like weddings. Intead, the health minister attended a wedding during the latest surge. https://www.almasryalyoum.com/news/details/2226322
Film fests shld have gone virtual. Instead of appearing unmasked on red carpets, celebrities cld have done public service announcements educating public on why they're forgoing events this year. Instead, after the Gouna Film Festival we saw celebrities do PSAs of their infections
Egypt isn't only country that failed to do all it could to protect people, but just as leaders in US & UK shouldn't be able to create myths of success after a year of missteps, Sisi shouldnt be able to pretend that not counting deaths erases the terrible toll Egypt has witnessed
Too often Orwellian efforts at erasing history is part of regime toolbox to avoid accountability & hope population will move on & forget a history of poor governance by leaders. After the military lied abt creating cure for Hep C they were saved by a real cure becoming available
What followed the Hep C scandal was actually one of the govt's greatest positive achievements to date. A massive campaign to treat and cure millions of Egyptians who were infected with that terrible disease. I fear no similar correction will follow this past year.
Last time, scale of the disease was not in dispute & pressure to cure it was enormous after dishonest claims of developing a magical cure. The strategy this time appears to be pretending death toll is a fraction of reality. If failure doesn't exist, there's no need to rectify it
As I've written in the past, poor governance isn't just suboptimal, it has serious human costs. In this case, it would appear to have had a particularly devastating one. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-02-17/egypt-s-population-boom-is-no-boon?sref=dZCb6QAy
For the sake of clarity, it should not be assumed that all excess deaths were directly the result of Covid, though a large share of them likely were. Difficulty finding space in hospitals during surges as well as fear of hospitals during this time may have contributed as well.
