{"id":96877,"date":"2020-10-16T11:13:19","date_gmt":"2020-10-16T03:13:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=96877"},"modified":"2020-10-16T11:13:21","modified_gmt":"2020-10-16T03:13:21","slug":"covid-19-syria-government-prepares-for-virus-second-wave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=96877","title":{"rendered":"Covid-19: Syria government ‘prepares for virus second wave’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\u00a0DAMASCUS, Oct 16 (NNN-AGENCIES) — <\/strong>The Syrian government has set up a temporary hospital for Covid-19 patients at a Damascus sports complex in preparation for what an official said was a possible second wave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The facility at Al-Faiha Stadium will operate 120 beds for people requiring oxygen, but has capacity for 100 more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The health ministry has reported 4,774 cases of Covid-19 and 228 deaths in government-held areas since March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, experts believe the actual figures are significantly higher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last month, researchers in the UK estimated that only a fraction of deaths due to Covid-19 in Damascus had been reported for various reasons, including limited testing capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The UN warned that community transmission was widespread, as almost 90% of new cases could not be traced to a known source; infection rates among health workers were rising; and shortages of staff and supplies were putting even more pressure on a health system decimated by years of civil war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Health authorities in the opposition-held north-west of Syria and the Kurdish-controlled north-east have separately reported the deaths of another 77 people with Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So far this month, the Syrian government has reported 527 new Covid-19 cases and 26 deaths across its territory, according to the health ministry’s website. In September, 1,417 infections and 86 deaths were recorded in total.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The state-run Sana news agency cited a senior health ministry official, Dr Tawfiq Hasaba, as saying the new temporary hospital at Al-Faiha Stadium was part of the measures being taken to “provide appropriate services to coronavirus patients in the event of a new climax”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr Hasaba said there had been an increase in the daily number of new cases in the past week, and noted that there could be a surge in cases this winter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sana reported that the ministry had also set up an emergency management room to co-ordinate the transportation and treatment of patients in government and private hospitals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government is not currently expected to reimpose the lockdown measures it eased in May because Syria is facing a deep economic crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Front-line health workers have also accused the government of failing to protect them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doctors, nurses and aid workers said that they face shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) and restricted access to oxygen tanks, while in mid-August the doctors union reported that a total of 61 health workers had died since Covid-19 was first detected in Syria. — NNN-AGENCIES<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0DAMASCUS, Oct 16 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The Syrian government has set up a temporary hospital for Covid-19 patients at a Damascus sports complex in preparation for what an official said was a possible second wave. The facility at Al-Faiha Stadium will operate 120 beds for people requiring oxygen, but has capacity for 100 more. The health […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":96878,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[217],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96877"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=96877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/96878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=96877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=96877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=96877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}