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BeckyDem

(8,361 posts)
Fri Mar 27, 2020, 09:12 AM Mar 2020

Syria has confirmed its first cases of coronavirus. An outbreak there would be hell.

“If we face this situation here, I think it will be endless.”
By Betsy Joles Mar 27, 2020, 7:20am EDT



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Syria has now confirmed five cases of the novel coronavirus, putting it on the growing list of countries contending with the deadly pandemic.

But Syria isn’t just another country. It’s one that has been ravaged by war for nearly a decade, which has decimated its infrastructure and left a large segment of the population at high risk of infection.

Syria’s public health care system, once considered among the best in the region, is in shambles. Hospitals and other health facilities have been destroyed by nine years of targeted attacks. Millions displaced from conflict live precariously in Syria’s overcrowded northwest, and others across the country suffer the burden of an ailing economy, which makes closing businesses and losing incomes during an outbreak an added concern.

If health care systems in Italy, Spain, and the United States are overwhelmed by the onslaught of Covid-19 cases, Syria’s prospects are grim — especially in Idlib, the last opposition-held area in Syria’s northwest.

https://www.vox.com/world/2020/3/27/21195860/coronavirus-syria-idlib-covid-19-cases-outbreak-middle-east

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