Middle East Experience

Lebanese commercial banks will start in collaboration with the Central Bank to set the prices of the foreign currencies against the lira even before BDL creates the electronic platform, the Association of Banks in Lebanon said in a statement Sunday..
Source: Albawaba
Full Article: Lebanon banks to work with BDL on daily FX rates

The status quo in the occupied Palestinian territories is 'unacceptable', said Sir Vincent Fean..
Source: Albawaba
Full Article: UK 'must be pressed to recognise Palestinian state': ex-diplomat

Tensions flare between Saudi and UAE aligned forces.
Source: Al Monitor
Full Article: Riyadh Agreement at risk of collapse in southern Yemen

The United States intends to focus more on stabilizing Deir ez-Zor and Hasakah provinces as it suspends humanitarian operations in northeast Syria due to COVID-19.
Source: Al Monitor
Full Article: Amid coronavirus concerns, some US-funded aid work paused in northeast Syria

The youngest recovered coronavirus patient in Saudi Arabia, who is just weeks old, was transported home following his hospital stay, a video shared on social media shows.Khalid, only weeks old, was carried in a hospital crib and transported in an ambulance car to his family’s house in a town called al-Duwadimi in Riyadh province.The baby was only four days old when he was infected with COVID-19, local media reported.For the latest updates on coronavirus, visit our dedicated page.Saudi Arabia recorded 61 new coronavirus cases on Monday, bringing the total number of cases in the Kingdom to 2,463, according to data on the Ministry of Health’s website dedicated to COVID-19 news. Saudi Arabia has reported 34 virus-related fatalities so far.The Kingdom has taken measures to combat the spread of coronavirus.Read more:How much you are exposed to the coronavirus affects disease severity: ExpertsWhy is coronavirus killing more men than women?Governments track coronavirus infections, but what about tracking immunity?
Source: Al Arabiya
Full Article: Coronavirus: Youngest Saudi patient recovered, moved back home

The Egyptian military has begun manufacturing and selling protective masks, which are in short supply through pharmacies.
Source: Al Monitor
Full Article: Will Egypt's military corner the coronavirus market?

Governments have begun to use any methods necessary in order to secure supplies of crucial medical goods to fight the coronavirus pandemic, such as face masks and ventilators.Countries including the US, France, and Turkey have been accused of confiscating shipments, holding on to supplies, and last minute outbidding each other in an escalating war for supply goods. One German official noted that US efforts to secure a shipment of face masks from China destined for Germany smacked of “methods from the Wild West,” AFP reported.“Unfortunately, some countries manage the crisis with the logic of jungle law and seize medical support shipments, looking at their narrow interests,” UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Anwar Gargash said in a Tweet on Sunday.On Friday, German officials accused the US of diverting a delivery of Chinese-made face masks bound for Germany in an act of “modern-day piracy,” Berlin’s State Minister of the Interior Andreas Geisel said.French officials had made similar complaints earlier in the week that the US had taken orders of Chinese masks by outbidding them at the last minute on a shipment that had already been lined up, AFP reported.“On the tarmac, they arrive, get the cash out … so we really have to fight,” Jean Rottner, a doctor and president of the French GrandEst regional council told RTL radio, The Guardian reported.The US denied these claims, stating that it has “not purchased any masks intended for delivery from China to France.”Earlier in March, Germany blocked a shipment of 240,000 face masks to Switzerland, following a ban on most exports of protective medical equipment. Austria raised similar complaints.“It can’t be that Germany is holding back products for Austria just because they happen to be stored in a German location,” Bloomberg reported Austrian Economy Minister Margarete Schramboeck as saying.Turkey was accused of seizing hundreds of life-saving ventilator machines destined for Spain last week. Local newspaper El Mundo reported Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs Arancha González Laya as saying that the Turkish Government decided to keep the machines “for the treatment of their own patients.”Turkey later released the ventilators as a media furor rose in Spain.Global shortagesAs the coronavirus pandemic continues the supply problem of crucial equipment is unlikely to disappear. Data analytics company GlobalData estimated last week that there is a supply gap of around 880,000 ventilators globally due to the virus’s outbreak.“Access to medical ventilators is a matter of life and death for many patients that have a severe bout of COVID-19… export curbs on ventilators deny access to this medical equipment to foreign buyers and citizens. Export curbs on related parts and components can slow down or stall production of ventilators,” GlobalData said.New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said last week that the US state needed 30,000 ventilators to support its outbreak of cases, and that “you cannot buy them.” Examples like these point to the overstretched nature of the global medical supply chain, coupled with dangerously overburdened local healthcare systems.Holding up medical imports and exports carry a human cost, as stockpiling can mean countries are left unprepared for when the pandemic strikes.“The human cost of export bans of medical equipment are not something any policymaker wants to have on their conscience,” GlobalData added.With agenciesRead more:Coronavirus: Dubai fines 14 merchants for hiking facemask pricesCoronavirus: Inside the global war for ventilatorsCoronavirus: France to ramp up face masks, respirators production
Source: Al Arabiya
Full Article: Coronavirus: Countries begin hijacking medical goods over supply shortage fears

All exposures to the coronavirus are not equal, according to medical experts, who warn that people in close proximity with, or who have frequent exposure, to the virus have a higher risk of severe disease.Scientific understanding of the coronavirus is still in its infancy, but in at least one other viral infection, measles, there is epidemiological evidence that a higher dose of the virus is associated with a more severe illness.“It is plausible that some types of exposures are more likely to transmit a higher versus a lower dose of the coronavirus,” Dr. Arthur Reingold, division head of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health, said in an interview with Al Arabiya English.An example of a lower risk exposure would be walking quickly past someone outdoors who is infected, but not showing symptoms, according to Dr. Reingold. In this case the situation does not pose a high risk for the infection to lead to critical illness.An example of a high-risk exposure is to be in the same small room with someone who is infected, and showing symptoms like sneezing and coughing, for several hours. The latter is more probable to result in a severe case of COVID-19, the novel coronavirus disease.Doctors Joshua Rabinowitz and Caroline Bartman recommend taking specific care against high-dose exposures, which are “most likely to occur in close in-person interactions…[and] are more dangerous in enclosed spaces and at short distances, with dose escalating with exposure time,” in a New York Times op-ed.There is also evidence from animal studies that a higher dose of virus is associated with a more severe illness.Doctors at risk for high-risk exposuresThe World Health Organization (WHO) has designated groups of people most at-risk for a severe illness if they do contract the virus, like the elderly and those with preconditions.The WHO also warned that health care workers are at risk of infection due to hazards including pathogen exposure and long working hours, but fell short of warning about the risk of a high level dose, in the WHO report “Coronavirus disease outbreak: rights, roles, and responsibilities of health workers” published on March 18.Amid the coronavirus pandemic, healthcare workers have both more exposures and more high-risk exposures, according to Dr. Reingold.“Medical personnel face an extreme risk, since they deal with the sickest, highest-viral-load patients,” according to Rabinowitz and Bartman.There have been reports of physicians in their twenties and thirties dying after treating coronavirus patients in China and Pakistan, and at least 61 doctors in Italy have died while caring for COVID-19 patients, with the majority in the hard-hit Lombardy region, according to the Italian Association of Doctors.Preventing high-dose infectionsSubjection to elevated amounts of the virus can go undetected considering someone who is asymptomatic can spread COVID-19 “with high efficiency,” according to the WHO.COVID-19 can spread via cough or respiratory droplets, contact with bodily fluids, or from contaminated surfaces.Rabinowitz and Bartman recommend prioritizing protective gear for medical workers, as well as the preventative measures of social distancing, face masks, and good hygiene for all people “since these practices not only decrease infectious spread but also tend to decrease dose and thus the lethalness of infections that do occur.”“While preventing viral spread is a societal good, avoiding high-dose infections is a personal imperative, even for young healthy people,” write Rabinowitz and Bartman.For all the latest coronavirus news visit our dedicated page.
Source: Al Arabiya
Full Article: How much you are exposed to the coronavirus affects disease severity: Experts

The survey was released exclusively to The Jerusalem Post on Friday, the same day that the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) completed its investigation into the movements of the minister.;
Source: Jerusalem Post
Full Article: Israelis lack trust in Health Minister Litzman - survey

Dubai's nighttime curfew has been extended to all day and all night for two weeks, subject to renewal, as the city continues its sanitation program to counter the spread of coronavirus, according to an announcement on Saturday by the emirate's Supreme Committee of Crisis and Disaster Management.Since late March, the emirate has imposed strict restrictions on movement between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. as it seeks to sterilize the city. Starting at 8 p.m. on Saturday, the curfew will now apply at all times, with stricter restrictions on movement imposed.Members of the public are allowed to go out for essential needs only, such as buying food. Only one family member is permitted to leave the house. The committee added that legal action will be taken against violators.Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority announced that its public bus services will be free of charge for individuals permitted to leave their homes during the extended two-week sterilization period. Additionally, Dubai Taxi vehicles & franchised taxis will offer a 50 percent discount.Union cooperative outlets, supermarkets, pharmacies and food and medicine deliveries are also allowed to operate normally throughout the day.Extensive medical tests will be conducted across densely populated areas in the emirate to ensure members of community are not affected by COVID-19.Meanwhile, the previous 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew - originally set to expire - has been prolonged indefinitely in the rest of the UAE. Only Dubai currently has a 24 hour curfew.Read the latest updates in our dedicated coronavirus section.Earlier on Saturday, Dubai announced the suspension of the services of the Metro and Tram in the emirate as of Sunday.The UAE’s health ministry recommended that everyone should wear a mask while in public based on recent research that showed people with no symptoms can spread the virus.Read more:Coronavirus: $270 fine for walking next to others, $1,360 for partying in UAEVideo: Dubai Police use radars to detect nighttime coronavirus curfew violatorsCoronavirus: UAE extends curfew indefinitely due to disinfection program
Source: Al Arabiya
Full Article: Coronavirus: Dubai announces two-week 24-hour curfew as disinfection continues