Arab World's Covid-19 Fight Is Exemplary

The positive Arab response to the virus is, in part, due to the fact that Arab governments identified the threat from the virus and acted on it more decisively than the Trump administration, which, even now, remains in partial denial

- Michael Jansen

Despite warfare in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, huge disparities in national and personal incomes, and economic dislocation in the Eastern Arab World, the Arabs seem to be handling the coronavirus better than the global hyperpower, the US. Of course, the response to the virus challenge has been and will be more proactive and successful in some states than others, as it is in the US, but even the wealthiest Arabs do not have the massive resources possessed by the US.

The positive Arab response to the virus is, in part, due to the fact that Arab governments identified the threat from the virus and acted on it more decisively than the Trump administration, which, even now, remains in partial denial. In this region lockdown was ordered and largely implemented country-by-country, governorate-by-governorate, district-by-district, and city-by-city.

The sprawling, transcontinental US has not yet convinced 10 of the 50 states, the majority with Republican governors, to carry out lockdowns and distancing between individuals. Even some which do refuse to halt communal religious services while for example, Saudi Arabia, the Muslim heartland, has not only banned mosque services, halted the inflow of pilgrims for Umra but warned those seeking to take part in the Hajj to hold off making bookings.

Another factor is that, due to war-devastated or non-existent public health systems, the lack of expertise in virus control, limited financial resources, and continuous destructive interference from external powers, notably the US, Arabs are mentally and psychologically equipped to stand up to the virus and insecurity.