Editor’s note: The daily COVID-19 wrap-up is part of the Mada Morning Digest, our daily overview of what is making waves in the Arabic language press. If you want all the latest updates on COVID-19 and other leading stories — including coverage of the economy, foreign policy, Parliament, the judiciary, media and much more — to land in your mailbox each morning, subscribe for a free trial here.
Here are the latest figures on COVID-19 as of Monday, May 11:
New cases | Recovered | New deaths |
346 | 99 | 8 |
Current cases | Total cases | Total deaths |
6,558 | 9,746 | 533 |
The Health Ministry has circulated an internal memo outlining the steps that must be taken before PCR tests are administered to suspected COVID-19 cases.
The news comes amid uncertainty over the trend in Egypt’s rate of infection and a somewhat incoherent flurry of messaging from officials, whose comments on both the severity of the outbreak and the approach toward lockdown have differed substantially over the past few days.
The number of cases recorded daily inclined sharply upward for the first weeks of May, with 495 cases registered at a peak on May 8. A slight dip over the past two days however saw 436 new cases recorded on May 10, and 346 registered on May 11.
According to the guidelines in the Health Ministry memo on Monday night, patients suspected of having COVID-19 must undergo a chest X-ray, a complete blood count, and receive a referral signed by two specialists before going for PCR testing. The memo warns that medical staff will face legal action if they do not adhere to the new regulations.
The message comes amid uncertainty around the number of PCR tests — the main type of test in use to confirm coronavirus cases — that Egypt is administering on a daily basis. On April 23, Health Minister Hala Zayed said that Egypt had conducted over 90,000 PCR tests to date, while an update from State Information Services on May 9 reported that the ministry had now conducted over 105,000 PCR tests. The World Health Organization said on March 28 that Egypt has the capacity to conduct up to 200,000 tests, though it did not specify what kind of tests it was referring to.
With the trend in the rate of infection unclear, comments from top officials handling the response to the coronavirus have been equally muddled over the past week, with contradictory indications around whether the lockdown is likely to be tightened or lifted after Eid.
Dr. Hossam Hosny, who heads the Health Ministry’s COVID-19 Science Committee, appeared on Monday night on the Al-Hadath Al-Youm talk show. He told host Lamis al-Hadidy that he hoped the government would enforce a total lockdown for the last week of Ramadan and the first week of Eid al-Fitr, although he pointed hopefully to the dip in new cases recorded over the past two days.
It is unclear how Hosny’s comments square with Sunday’s remarks from Dr. Mohamed Tag Eddin, health advisor to the president. Though Tag Eddin initially said that “we might have to resort to a full lockdown” if the number of cases continued on the upward trajectory, he quickly contradicted himself, denying shortly afterward that the government was considering total lockdown, and claiming his earlier statement was misunderstood.
Speaking on Monday, Hosny echoed the advice of a letter submitted to the Cabinet on May 4, in which leaders of the Doctors Syndicate also called for a stricter lockdown until the end of Ramadan. Both Hosny and the syndicate leaders advised that the next two weeks would be an opportune moment to keep people at home, speculating that the annual economic slowdown that comes with Ramadan working hours would minimize the negative impact on the economy.
Beyond the top news, several other items related to COVID-19 made it to the headlines in Tuesday’s press.