2020 COVID-19 pandemic in Syria
2020 CE.
Shown on the map at 35.217°, 38.583°.
The COVID-19 pandemic in Syria was part of the pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The disease was confirmed to have reached Syria on 22 March 2020, when the first case was confirmed of a person who came from abroad. Syria has been considered especially vulnerable to the pandemic due to its civil war and dire humanitarian situation. On 12 January 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that a novel coronavirus was the cause of a respiratory illness in a cluster of people in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China, which was reported to the WHO on 31 December 2019. Many people in Syria did not have confidence in the government's transparency during the pandemic, accusing it of hiding the true numbers of cases and deaths, especially in Damascus, Rif Dimashq, and Aleppo. It has been speculated that doctors in hospitals and medical facilities were being threatened with being fired or even being arrested and detained by the government forces if they said anything about the truth of what was happening in the hospitals.
Text from the Wikipedia article COVID-19 pandemic in Syria, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.