Corona kills in Tripoli: Are measures imposed before disaster strikes?

Abdul Kafi Al-Samad –

So far, Corona’s injuries are “advancing” at the catastrophic rate expected by the Ministry of Health, which “predicted” a week ago that actual cases of the epidemic would reach the threshold of 15,000 before the end of the second week of this september. Yesterday, the number of these reached 13,715 people after the Ministry of Public Health announced in the evening that 527 new cases (525 residents and expatriates) of 9,000 and ninety-nine laboratory tests had been registered, while four were registered deaths, bringing the number of victims of the virus since its entry into Lebanon to 183 people.

At the time, the ministry’s expectations were based on the mixed chaos left by the Beirut explosion, that it was only natural that we “reaped” its results over the past few weeks, especially in the Beirut area, while monitoring cases in That moment showed that Tripoli is on the verge of an alarming scenario due to the mixing of some residents of the city with people injured in Beirut during the protests that took place in the capital after the explosion, as previously informed by sources from the ministry to “Al- Akhbar “.
Today, it is clear that the ministry’s “prophecy” has been validated (whether or not its analysis of the expected increase in injuries is accurate), with the number of injured in the city “jumping” from 151 on August 6 to 1,222 injured. , which places Tripoli in fourth place in Lebanon in terms of number of wounded. .
These data come when the city does not have the necessary equipment to face the virus at the hospital and health sector level, as in other regions, while it does not seem that efforts are being made in the region to prevent the worsening of the disaster through strict measures prevention and social distancing.

On August 15, the Ministry of Health announced the isolation of four regions due to a large-scale outbreak of the virus in them, including the Bab al-Tabbaneh district in Tripoli, which is the largest, most densely populated and more poor. But those who visited that area as a result of the decision did not touch any practical translation of it: there is no authority to implement it, there is no conscience, and few pedestrians on crowded streets wear muzzles!
But the number of injured, as well as the death, was not limited to the children of “Al-Tabbaneh”. The virus infected residents of different neighborhoods in Tripoli and Al-Mina.
The reasons for the high number of people infected in Tripoli in this way are attributed to the head of the Environment Committee of the city municipality, Nour al-Ayoubi, that “the appearance of wounded in Tripoli has been delayed, since the appearance of the first infection in Lebanon on February 21, this caused the prevailing threat of the virus in the situation to be underestimated, with a prevailing misunderstanding in Tripoli that the city is immune to the virus, without this belief having a scientific, medical or rational basis ” .
Not far from Tripoli, it was only natural that the Daniyeh Crisis and Disaster Cell, headed by District Commissioner Rola Al-Bayi, would make a decision, the first of its kind in the region, to “close the city of Beit to the -Fakq for a period of 5 days, after the number of infected people increased significantly, and to prevent the spread of the virus. ” The death toll from the virus reached 6, prompting the president of the Danniyeh Municipalities Union, Muhammad Saadia, to mobilize the Crisis Cell in the Union in cooperation with the city’s Crisis Cell and to carry out campaigns of awareness within available capacities.