A view of closed school amid the ongoing COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic in Gaza City. EPA
A view of closed school amid the ongoing COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic in Gaza City. EPA
Members of the clinical staff wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) care for a patient with coronavirus in the intensive care unit at the European Hospital, east of Rafah town, southern Gaza strip, 30 November 2020. The European Hospital, which has been classified as the Epidemiology Hospital since the start of the coronavirus in the Gaza Strip on 25 August 2020, has 334 infected cases under clinical care including 109 severe and critical cases. The production capacity of oxygen is 2,200 liters per minute, and there has become a large deficit after the increasing number of infections with Coronavirus. EPA/MOHAMMED SABER
Members of the clinical staff wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) care for a patient with coronavirus in the intensive care unit at the European Hospital, east of Rafah town, southern Gaza strip, 30 November 2020. The European Hospital, which has been classified as the Epidemiology Hospital since the start of the coronavirus in the Gaza Strip on 25 August 2020, has 334 infected cases under clinical care including 109 severe and critical cases. The production capacity of oxygen is 2,200 liters per minute, and there has become a large deficit after the increasing number of infections with Coronavirus. EPA/MOHAMMED SABER
A Palestinian patient with coronavirus checks his mobile phone in the intensive care unit at the European Hospital, east of Rafah town, southern Gaza strip, 30 November 2020. The European Hospital, which has been classified as the Epidemiology Hospital since the start of the coronavirus in the Gaza Strip on 25 August 2020, has 334 infected cases under clinical care including 109 severe and critical cases. The production capacity of oxygen is 2,200 liters per minute, and there has become a large deficit after the increasing number of infections with Coronavirus. EPA/MOHAMMED SABER
A Palestinian patient with coronavirus checks his mobile phone in the intensive care unit at the European Hospital, east of Rafah town, southern Gaza strip, 30 November 2020. The European Hospital, which has been classified as the Epidemiology Hospital since the start of the coronavirus in the Gaza Strip on 25 August 2020, has 334 infected cases under clinical care including 109 severe and critical cases. The production capacity of oxygen is 2,200 liters per minute, and there has become a large deficit after the increasing number of infections with Coronavirus. EPA/MOHAMMED SABER
Members of the clinical staff wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) care for a patient with coronavirus in the intensive care unit at the European Hospital, east of Rafah town, southern Gaza strip, 30 November 2020. The European Hospital, which has been classified as the Epidemiology Hospital since the start of the coronavirus in the Gaza Strip on 25 August 2020, has 334 infected cases under clinical care including 109 severe and critical cases. The production capacity of oxygen is 2,200 liters per minute, and there has become a large deficit after the increasing number of infections with Coronavirus. EPA/MOHAMMED SABER
Members of the clinical staff wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) care for a patient with coronavirus in the intensive care unit at the European Hospital, east of Rafah town, southern Gaza strip, 30 November 2020. The European Hospital, which has been classified as the Epidemiology Hospital since the start of the coronavirus in the Gaza Strip on 25 August 2020, has 334 infected cases under clinical care including 109 severe and critical cases. The production capacity of oxygen is 2,200 liters per minute, and there has become a large deficit after the increasing number of infections with Coronavirus. EPA/MOHAMMED SABER
Members of the clinical staff wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) care for a patient with coronavirus in the intensive care unit at the European Hospital, east of Rafah town, southern Gaza strip, 30 November 2020. The European Hospital, which has been classified as the Epidemiology Hospital since the start of the coronavirus in the Gaza Strip on 25 August 2020, has 334 infected cases under clinical care including 109 severe and critical cases. The production capacity of oxygen is 2,200 liters per minute, and there has become a large deficit after the increasing number of infections with Coronavirus. EPA/MOHAMMED SABER
Members of the clinical staff wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) care for a patient with coronavirus in the intensive care unit at the European Hospital, east of Rafah town, southern Gaza strip, 30 November 2020. The European Hospital, which has been classified as the Epidemiology Hospital since the start of the coronavirus in the Gaza Strip on 25 August 2020, has 334 infected cases under clinical care including 109 severe and critical cases. The production capacity of oxygen is 2,200 liters per minute, and there has become a large deficit after the increasing number of infections with Coronavirus. EPA/MOHAMMED SABER
A Palestinian patient with coronavirus in the intensive care unit at the European Hospital, east of Rafah town, southern Gaza strip, 30 November 2020. The European Hospital, which has been classified as the Epidemiology Hospital since the start of the coronavirus in the Gaza Strip on 25 August 2020, has 334 infected cases under clinical care including 109 severe and critical cases. The production capacity of oxygen is 2,200 liters per minute, and there has become a large deficit after the increasing number of infections with Coronavirus. EPA/MOHAMMED SABER
A Palestinian patient with coronavirus in the intensive care unit at the European Hospital, east of Rafah town, southern Gaza strip, 30 November 2020. The European Hospital, which has been classified as the Epidemiology Hospital since the start of the coronavirus in the Gaza Strip on 25 August 2020, has 334 infected cases under clinical care including 109 severe and critical cases. The production capacity of oxygen is 2,200 liters per minute, and there has become a large deficit after the increasing number of infections with Coronavirus. EPA/MOHAMMED SABER
Members of the clinical staff wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) care for a patient with coronavirus in the intensive care unit at the European Hospital, east of Rafah town, southern Gaza strip, 30 November 2020. The European Hospital, which has been classified as the Epidemiology Hospital since the start of the coronavirus in the Gaza Strip on 25 August 2020, has 334 infected cases under clinical care including 109 severe and critical cases. The production capacity of oxygen is 2,200 liters per minute, and there has become a large deficit after the increasing number of infections with Coronavirus. EPA/MOHAMMED SABER
Members of the clinical staff wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) care for a patient with coronavirus in the intensive care unit at the European Hospital, east of Rafah town, southern Gaza strip, 30 November 2020. The European Hospital, which has been classified as the Epidemiology Hospital since the start of the coronavirus in the Gaza Strip on 25 August 2020, has 334 infected cases under clinical care including 109 severe and critical cases. The production capacity of oxygen is 2,200 liters per minute, and there has become a large deficit after the increasing number of infections with Coronavirus. EPA/MOHAMMED SABER
Members of the clinical staff wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) care for a patient with coronavirus in the intensive care unit at the European Hospital, east of Rafah town, southern Gaza strip, 30 November 2020. The European Hospital, which has been classified as the Epidemiology Hospital since the start of the coronavirus in the Gaza Strip on 25 August 2020, has 334 infected cases under clinical care including 109 severe and critical cases. The production capacity of oxygen is 2,200 liters per minute, and there has become a large deficit after the increasing number of infections with Coronavirus. EPA/MOHAMMED SABER
Members of the clinical staff wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) care for a patient with coronavirus in the intensive care unit at the European Hospital, east of Rafah town, southern Gaza strip, 30 November 2020. The European Hospital, which has been classified as the Epidemiology Hospital since the start of the coronavirus in the Gaza Strip on 25 August 2020, has 334 infected cases under clinical care including 109 severe and critical cases. The production capacity of oxygen is 2,200 liters per minute, and there has become a large deficit after the increasing number of infections with Coronavirus. EPA/MOHAMMED SABER
Palestinian patients with coronavirus in the intensive care unit at the European Hospital, east of Rafah town, southern Gaza strip, 30 November 2020. The European Hospital, which has been classified as the Epidemiology Hospital since the start of the coronavirus in the Gaza Strip on 25 August 2020, has 334 infected cases under clinical care including 109 severe and critical cases. The production capacity of oxygen is 2,200 liters per minute, and there has become a large deficit after the increasing number of infections with Coronavirus. EPA/MOHAMMED SABER
Palestinian patients with coronavirus in the intensive care unit at the European Hospital, east of Rafah town, southern Gaza strip, 30 November 2020. The European Hospital, which has been classified as the Epidemiology Hospital since the start of the coronavirus in the Gaza Strip on 25 August 2020, has 334 infected cases under clinical care including 109 severe and critical cases. The production capacity of oxygen is 2,200 liters per minute, and there has become a large deficit after the increasing number of infections with Coronavirus. EPA/MOHAMMED SABER
Members of the clinical staff wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) care for a patient with coronavirus in the intensive care unit at the European Hospital, east of Rafah town, southern Gaza strip, 30 November 2020. The European Hospital, which has been classified as the Epidemiology Hospital since the start of the coronavirus in the Gaza Strip on 25 August 2020, has 334 infected cases under clinical care including 109 severe and critical cases. The production capacity of oxygen is 2,200 liters per minute, and there has become a large deficit after the increasing number of infections with Coronavirus. EPA/MOHAMMED SABER
Members of the clinical staff wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) care for a patient with coronavirus in the intensive care unit at the European Hospital, east of Rafah town, southern Gaza strip, 30 November 2020. The European Hospital, which has been classified as the Epidemiology Hospital since the start of the coronavirus in the Gaza Strip on 25 August 2020, has 334 infected cases under clinical care including 109 severe and critical cases. The production capacity of oxygen is 2,200 liters per minute, and there has become a large deficit after the increasing number of infections with Coronavirus. EPA/MOHAMMED SABER
A Member of the clinical staff wearing Personal Protective Equipment rests outside the intensive care unit at the European Hospital, east of Rafah town, southern Gaza strip, 30 November 2020. The European Hospital, which has been classified as the Epidemiology Hospital since the start of the coronavirus in the Gaza Strip on 25 August 2020, has 334 infected cases under clinical care including 109 severe and critical cases. The production capacity of oxygen is 2,200 liters per minute, and there has become a large deficit after the increasing number of infections with Coronavirus. EPA/MOHAMMED SABER
A Member of the clinical staff wearing Personal Protective Equipment rests outside the intensive care unit at the European Hospital, east of Rafah town, southern Gaza strip, 30 November 2020. The European Hospital, which has been classified as the Epidemiology Hospital since the start of the coronavirus in the Gaza Strip on 25 August 2020, has 334 infected cases under clinical care including 109 severe and critical cases. The production capacity of oxygen is 2,200 liters per minute, and there has become a large deficit after the increasing number of infections with Coronavirus. EPA/MOHAMMED SABER
A Palestinian medical staff member wearing Personal Protective Equipment walks inside the European Hospital, east of Rafah town, southern Gaza strip, 30 November 2020. The European Hospital, which has been classified as the Epidemiology Hospital since the start of the coronavirus in the Gaza Strip on 25 August 2020, has 334 infected cases under clinical care including 109 severe and critical cases. The production capacity of oxygen is 2,200 liters per minute, and there has become a large deficit after the increasing number of infections with Coronavirus. EPA/MOHAMMED SABER
A Palestinian medical staff member wearing Personal Protective Equipment walks inside the European Hospital, east of Rafah town, southern Gaza strip, 30 November 2020. The European Hospital, which has been classified as the Epidemiology Hospital since the start of the coronavirus in the Gaza Strip on 25 August 2020, has 334 infected cases under clinical care including 109 severe and critical cases. The production capacity of oxygen is 2,200 liters per minute, and there has become a large deficit after the increasing number of infections with Coronavirus. EPA/MOHAMMED SABER

UN: people in Gaza will ‘die on streets’ if Covid situation not controlled

Healthcare has collapsed in the enclave, with limited resources to treat a growing number of coronavirus patients

Nada AlTaher
Nada AlTaher
Abu Dhabi

December 07, 2020

  • English
  • Arabic

“Prison-like” Gaza is two weeks away from hospitals reaching maximum capacity, which could lead to “people dying on the streets or at home”, the UN said on Thursday.

Cases have doubled over the past month in besieged Gaza, with over 580 daily cases and single-digit deaths as the number of infected people nears 30,000 and those killed by the illness crosses the 130 mark.

“If this trend doesn’t stop in two to three weeks, hospitals will have to turn people away,” said UNRWA director in Gaza Mattias Schmale. “People will die on the streets or at home if we don’t get this sorted,” he said at an online  seminar about Palestinian refugees held by the Middle East Institute.

“I realise some of the data may not sound very dramatic from a US perspective, but one has to keep in mind in Gaza, the prison-like conditions, being cut off from the world, is like a cruise ship and we know what happened ion cruise ships when there was an outbreak,” Mr Schmale said.

Part of the worsening situation lies in Gaza’s failing health sector, which Mr Schmale said has “collapsed totally”.

The provision of oxygen is one of the biggest challenges faced by the health sector, as power cuts make manual respiratory assistance necessary, further straining limited resources.

Authorities therefore suggested the idea of expanding the partial shutdown into a full lockdown.

“Half the population depends on daily paid work. These include taxi drivers and people selling items like cigarettes on the street and the worry is that if you lock the place down, there would be half a million people without income," Mr Schmale said.

The struggle to balance public health and the economy is just as delicate as in the rest of the world although in Gaza, the implications could be far greater.

“This is all happening on the 14th year of [Israeli] blockade with regards to Gaza bringing the population to its knees,” he said.

Women & Power: A Manifesto

Mary Beard

Profile Books and London Review of Books 

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The Bio

Favourite vegetable: “I really like the taste of the beetroot, the potatoes and the eggplant we are producing.”

Holiday destination: “I like Paris very much, it’s a city very close to my heart.”

Book: “Das Kapital, by Karl Marx. I am not a communist, but there are a lot of lessons for the capitalist system, if you let it get out of control, and humanity.”

Musician: “I like very much Fairuz, the Lebanese singer, and the other is Umm Kulthum. Fairuz is for listening to in the morning, Umm Kulthum for the night.”

Countries recognising Palestine

France, UK, Canada, Australia, Portugal, Belgium, Malta, Luxembourg, San Marino and Andorra

 

Our commentary on Brexit
UAE currency
Kareem Shaheen on Canada
The specs

Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo

Power: 261hp at 5,500rpm

Torque: 405Nm at 1,750-3,500rpm

Transmission: 9-speed auto

Fuel consumption: 6.9L/100km

On sale: Now

Price: From Dh117,059

MATCH INFO

Inter Milan 2 (Vecino 65', Barella 83')

Verona 1 (Verre 19' pen)

Aldar Properties Abu Dhabi T10

*November 15 to November 24

*Venue: Zayed Cricket Stadium, Abu Dhabi

*Tickets: Start at Dh10, from ttensports.com

*TV: Ten Sports

*Streaming: Jio Live

*2017 winners: Kerala Kings

*2018 winners: Northern Warriors

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Specs

Engine: 51.5kW electric motor

Range: 400km

Power: 134bhp

Torque: 175Nm

Price: From Dh98,800

Available: Now

Global Fungi Facts

• Scientists estimate there could be as many as 3 million fungal species globally
• Only about 160,000 have been officially described leaving around 90% undiscovered
• Fungi account for roughly 90% of Earth's unknown biodiversity
• Forest fungi help tackle climate change, absorbing up to 36% of global fossil fuel emissions annually and storing around 5 billion tonnes of carbon in the planet's topsoil

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
%20Ramez%20Gab%20Min%20El%20Akher
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECreator%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Ramez%20Galal%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarring%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Ramez%20Galal%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStreaming%20on%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EMBC%20Shahid%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E2.5%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
SERIE A FIXTURES

Saturday Spezia v Lazio (6pm), Juventus v Torino (9pm), Inter Milan v Bologna (7.45pm)

Sunday Verona v Cagliari (3.30pm), Parma v Benevento, AS Roma v Sassuolo, Udinese v Atalanta (all 6pm), Crotone v Napoli (9pm), Sampdoria v AC Milan (11.45pm)

Monday Fiorentina v Genoa (11.45pm)

Dengue%20fever%20symptoms
%3Cp%3EHigh%20fever%20(40%C2%B0C%2F104%C2%B0F)%3Cbr%3ESevere%20headache%3Cbr%3EPain%20behind%20the%20eyes%3Cbr%3EMuscle%20and%20joint%20pains%3Cbr%3ENausea%3Cbr%3EVomiting%3Cbr%3ESwollen%20glands%3Cbr%3ERash%26nbsp%3B%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Coronavirus