Based on interviews conducted with doctors, nurses and other frontline staff across West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, the paper exposes how the stresses and strains of protracted COVID-19 response have compounded existing challenges of working in a health system already rendered fragile, fragmented and resource-deprived by perpetual occupation and blockade, to cause a deepening wellbeing crisis among the Palestinian healthcare workforce.
On 15 March, Lebanon’s Prime Minister announced a medical state of emergency over the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, shutting down almost all public and private institutions. The pandemic hits Lebanon at a time where the country is already facing an unprecedented economic crisis, impairing the capacities of already vulnerable Lebanese and refugees to subsist and heightening the risks of social instability. The COVID-19 outbreak is already leading to worryingly growing community tensions as fears of further outbreak are fuelling underlying tensions and waves of panic are spreading. Tensions...
On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the corona virus (COVID-19) a global pandemic. Originating in Wuhan province
of central China in late 2019, the corona virus has since spread to 166 countries to date.
