Iraq is too broken to protect itself from covid-19

PITY THECCTV doctors of Iraq. Thousands are thought to have contracted covid-19. If the disease doesn’t get them, local tribesmen might. “Every time a patient dies we all hold our breath,” says Dr Tariq al-Sheibani, the director of a hospital in southern Iraq. A month ago a young man from the Hasnawi tribe died of covid-19 in his hospital. That night, as Dr Sheibani left work, 20 of the dead man’s relatives beat him unconscious. The doctor is trying to press charges ( cameras captured the scene), but officials told his family that they would be safer if he did not.Most Arab regimes have dealt with covid-19 by tightening their grip. Not Iraq. It gave up on lockdowns long ago. The government seems powerless to enforce social distancing or the wearings of masks (some men see the coverings as an insult to their virility). It has little money to spend on a health service gutted by war and corruption. Clergymen still organise mass gatherings. Officially the virus has infected more than 350,000 Iraqis and killed more than 9,000. That is surely an undercount, yet it is still more than in any other Arab country.