Despite an official announcement of two confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus and a decision to quarantine about 1500 workers at an oil and natural gas company, who's been in contact with the second confirmed case, Egyptians' online comments show very little public confidence in containment measures taken by the government.
'Egypt does not have the capacity to detect new cases'
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) March 4, 2020
-Mostafa Gawish, health policy analysthttps://t.co/BfDLOUhZmW
Social media users grew even more suspicious as Canada, France, and Taiwan reported confirmed COVID-19 cases of travelers coming from Egypt. Many commentators hinted that Egyptian authorities are unable to diagnose cases.
#Canada confirms a #coronavirus case of a man with a travel history to Egypt. #France says two new cases of Coronavirus are of people just returned from #Egypt.
— Ahmed Nour (@AhmedNourdin77) February 29, 2020
Egypt says no Coronavirus infections detected in the country! #كورونا #فيروس_كرونا #فيروس_كورونا_المستجدّ pic.twitter.com/hEEOVZkEhV
Apparently, two individuals who tested positive in France, came from Egypt.
Yet, the Egyptian government has only reported 1 case (around two weeks ago), which they also claim has been “treated”, making Egypt “coronavirus free”.
Well, something doesn’t add up. https://t.co/It3lb2WfS1— مريم (@_meriam_) February 27, 2020
Last week, Twitter was flooded with memes featuring the Egyptian health minister Hala Zayed as she announced her plan to visit China "to show solidarity" over the coronavirus crisis, with many users wondering whether the minister will be quarantined upon her return or not.
هل سيتم وضع الوزيره في الحجر الصحي كما فعل بالاخرين عند عودتها .
— مصر (@rwaa_k) March 2, 2020
#وزيره_الصحه
Translation: "Will the health minister be quarantined she returns from China?"
Sparking even more controversy, Egyptian online commentators shared an opening scene from a 2014 show called "The Last Ship" to express their mistrust of the current measures taken by the government to tackle the coronavirus outbreak. , The show's plot blamed a fatal virus outbreak on a false claim by Egyptian authorities of having it contained while it was actually spreading out to the rest of the world,
#Egypt, a country of 100 million, insists only got 2 #Coronavirus #Covid19 cases
— Saad (@SaadAbedine) March 2, 2020
The Last Ship, a 1988 post-apocalyptic fiction novel written by William Brinkley, predicted a pandemic that start from ?? & spread over all continents, infecting 80% of the world's population ? pic.twitter.com/pYxQYKWAdd
