ﺧﺎص ﻣﻦ ھﯿﺌﺔ اﻟﺘﺪرﯾﺲ
FACULTY FEATURE
L E BA N O N ’S PA N D E M I C
I N C O N T E XT
A deeper look at COVID-19’s spread in Lebanon and how it intersects with the country’s ongoing crises By Ziad Abu-Rish
L
ebanon has faced an avalanche of devastating developments since 2019: chronic budget deficits, economic stagnation, rising poverty and unemployment rates, infrastructural breakdown, a banking crisis, currency depreciation, political paralysis, and the August 2020 Beirut port explosion. These compounding and intersecting crises have made it difficult for outside observers and many local residents to keep tabs on and make sense of the overall trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country. This article draws on insights from local public health 8
researchers, journalists, and activists to highlight the nature of the pandemic’s spread, the government response, and how they intersect with other critical dynamics in the country. Lebanese authorities announced the country’s first confirmed case of COVID-19 on February 21, 2020 and its first confirmed related death less than two months later, on March 10. As of June 1, 2021— fifteen months into the pandemic in Lebanon—the Ministry of Public Health claimed there were a total of 540,630 cumulative confirmed cases, 12,422 of which remain active, and another 7,735 that resulted in death. Among those active cases in Lebanon, 244 people were hospitalized, with 135 of those patients in intensive care units. The average 14-day positivity rate for the last two weeks of May was 2.6% (compared to 11% for the last two weeks in April). Such statistics are staggering in absolute terms, but also in relative terms. With an estimated total population of 6.5 million people, that means about 8% of the total population has caught the virus. Yet politiMansour El Habre, Uncal jockeying, systematic corruption, titled, 2021, Mixed Media and ineffective monitoring have on Paper, 11 ⅘ x 16 ½ combined to render problematic re- in. Courtesy of the artist cord keeping in the country. These and the Lebanese Talents government statistics in fact belie a Gallery, Beirut.
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies - Georgetown University
