CAIRO - For months, one enduring mystery of the coronavirus was why some of the world's most populous countries, with rickety health systems and crowded slums, had managed to avoid the brunt of an outbreak that was burning through relatively affluent societies in Europe and the United States.
"We haven't seen any evidence that certain populations will be spared," said Natalie Dean, an assistant professor of biostatistics at the University of Florida. For those not yet affected, she said,"it's a matter of when, not if." The upswing marks a new stage in the trajectory of the virus, away from Western countries that have settled into a grinding battle against an increasingly familiar adversary, toward corners of the globe where many hoped that hot weather, youthful populations or some unknown epidemiological factor might shield them from a scourge that has infected 6.5 million people and killed almost 400,000, over a quarter of them in the United States.
President Vladimir Putin of Russia, whose delivery of a planeload of medical aid to the United States in March was seen as a cocky snub, is grappling with the world's third-largest outbreak, with 440,000 cases that have enraged the public and depressed his approval ratings to their lowest in two decades.
Some hospitals are overflowing, and doctors are up in arms over shortages of protective equipment that, they say, has resulted in the deaths of at least 30 doctors. Outrage crystallised last week around the death of Dr Walid Yehia, 32, who had been denied emergency treatment at the overwhelmed Monira general hospital where he worked.
When doctors at the Mansheyat el Bakry hospital threatened to strike last month to protest the lack of training and protective equipment, they received a warning from a hospital senior manager: Anyone who failed to turn up for work the following day would be reported to the National Security Agency, which human rights groups have accused of torture and other abuses.
Last week the Health Ministry published a promotional video that showed coronavirus patients in a hospital praising their care and hailing el-Sissi.
Singapore Latest News, Singapore Headlines
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