Middle East Monitor / March 15, 2021
The Director of Medical Services at the Palestinian Ministry of Health has warned that local hospitals will soon face a shortage of beds for Covid-19 patients.
“The real number of Covid-19 patients is twice the number announced because a lot of people are not being tested,” Usama Al-Najjar told official Palestine Radio. He warned that unless the current situation eases, there is “a very big danger of the healthcare system collapsing.”
Al-Najjar stressed the importance of tightening the measures imposed to restrict the spread of the coronavirus in order to be able to control the pandemic. He added that the ministry will soon start testing for the British variant of the virus which has been spreading widely in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Several governorates have been closed to the rest of the West Bank due to the rise in the number of Covid-19 infections, said the Palestinian Authority. Minister of Health Mai Al-Kaila announced on Sunday that 2,142 new coronavirus infections were registered in occupied Palestine over the previous 24 hours, along with 15 deaths and 2,169 patients who had recovered, reported Wafa news agency
