An Opportunity in Crisis? Covid-19 and State-community Relations in Taiz
online resource
posted on 2024-09-05, 21:03authored byRaiman al-Hamdani, Mareike Transfeld
When many parts of the world began
to shut down public life to prevent the
spread of the coronavirus in March
2020, observers hoped that Yemen was
better placed to avoid the impact of the
pandemic due to the near-shut down
of international travel.(1) Unfortunately,
the virus did not spare Yemen, and
added more hardship to a country
already facing devastating economic,
health, and political crises. The Yemen
Supreme National Emergency for
COVID-19, a body created by the
internationally recognized government
of Yemen (IRG), as of March 31, 2021, puts
the number of infections at 44,357 and
888 deaths.(2) In June 2020, the United
Nations Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) put
the coronavirus known fatality rate in
Yemen at 25 percent, four times higher
than the global average.(3) Despite the
IRG’s attempts to be transparent about
the spread of the coronavirus, it spread
virtually undetected as the authorities
lacked testing capacities and the
necessary resources to control the virus.
As a result, authorities throughout the
country downplayed the virus.
Funding
Default funder
History
Publisher
Yemen Policy Center
Citation
al-Hamdani. R. and Transfeld. M. (2021) 'An Opportunity in Crisis? Covid-19 and State-community Relations in Taiz,' Policy Report, Berlin: Yemen Policy Center