Iran's health ministry reported 3,117 new Covid-10 cases on Tuesday. This is the highest daily figure since the end of March – and a clear sign that a second wave of the epidemic is now under way.
The Iranian government's figures show an initial wave of infections which peaked at the end of...
Blog archive: All
-
3rd June 2020
-
2nd June 2020By world standards, Morocco's Covid-19 epidemic was never very large and it's steadily getting smaller. At the peak in April, new cases were averaging more than 200 a day but the average during the past week has been only 43 a day. Between May 10 and the beginning of June, the number of...
-
1st June 2020The health minister in one of Yemen's two rival governments has defended its policy of concealing information about the Covid-19 epidemic in the areas it controls. The virus appears to be spreading rapidly throughout the country – many deaths have been reported in the south – but the Houthi...
-
31st May 2020There was good news from Qatar yesterday ... well, sort of. The Gulf state announced that 5,235 people with Covid-19 infections had recovered during the previous 24 hours. This was the highest number of recoveries so far in a single day, far outstripping the number of new cases in the same...
-
30th May 2020Until Thursday, Israel's coronavirus epidemic – which has so far infected more than 16,000 people – seemed to be fizzling out. For most of this month new cases were averaging only 25 a day as the country began emerging from its lockdown but now there has been a sudden rise. Over the last two...
-
29th May 2020Egypt's official tally of new Covid-19 infections rose above 1,000 for the first time on Thursday as President Sisi warned that his regime's handling of the crisis must not be questioned. According to Sisi, hostile campaigns by “lurking enemies of the homeland” are seeking to discredit the...
-
28th May 2020Health authorities in Algeria and Morocco say they intend to continue treating Covid-19 patients with anti-malaria drugs despite safety concerns raised by the World Health Organisation (WHO). Algeria claims to have had "great success" using hydroxychloroquine in combination with antibiotics...
-
27th May 2020There used to be about ten burials a day in the cemeteries of Yemen's second city, Aden, but since Covid-19 arrived the number has risen to around 80 a day. Although many of these deaths have not been properly investigated, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) which runs the city's only dedicated...
-
26th May 2020According to official figures, there are now almost 4,000 Covid-19 cases in Sudan – a third of them recorded during the past week. Those are the ones known to the authorities but health minister Akram Ali al-Tom readily acknowledges that the real number is higher. "The virus is running in...
-
25th May 2020If official reports are to be believed it's now more than three weeks since any Syrian living under the Assad regime's rule has become infected with the Covid-19 coronavirus. Although confirmed cases in regime-controlled areas have now risen to 106 the most recent 63 of them were all...
-
24th May 2020Ramadan is over and now it's holiday time. As Muslims enjoy the three-day Muslim festival of Eid al-Fitr, hotels in Egypt – previously closed because of the coronavirus pandemic – are beginning to receive guests again. On Friday, for the first time since March, 68 visitors checked into...
-
23rd May 2020Yesterday Tunisia's health ministry announced the results of 1,320 Covid-19 tests. Only six were positive and of those, only two were new cases. The other four were re-tests of people previously diagnosed with the virus. “Our country has succeeded in confronting the COVID-19 pandemic,” prime...
