Editor’s note: The daily COVID-19 wrap-up is part of the Mada Morning Digest, our daily overview of what is making waves in the Arabic language press. If you want all the latest updates on COVID-19 and other leading stories — including coverage of the economy, foreign policy, Parliament, the judiciary, media and much more — to land in your mailbox each morning, subscribe for a free trial here. 

Here are the latest figures on COVID-19 as of Sunday, May 10:

Main COVID-19 news

One thousand, two hundred workers have gone on strike in Ismailia, stopping production at a clothes factory to protest the non-payment of their April wages that management has withheld citing financial hardship caused by the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic. 

The report from Al-Watan newspaper withholds the timeline of the workers’ action in Ismailia, leading instead with how the Manpower Ministry has intervened to resolve the dispute, under a headline that reads, “Manpower Ministry disperses strike of 1,200 workers in clothing factory in Ismailia.”

At the same time, the Labor Observatory has released a report testifying to several incidents of labor action during the last half of April, according to the partisan Darb news website, which is running a headline that reads, “Labor Protests Observatory: 12 workers, social protests in April, 3 suicides due to poverty.” The news speaks to a labor market under pressure, as the COVID-19 pandemic has had a knock-on effect on wages. 

According to the piece in Al-Watan, 1,200 workers took over the halls at a factory in Ismailia’s free zone on an unspecified date, putting a hold on the production of ready-made clothing as workers made a bid to push administrators to pay salaries owed for April.

Al-Watan adds that Manpower Minister Mohamed Saafan said he had brokered an agreement between the factory owners and its workers via the Ismailia Manpower Directorate, stipulating that the due total of LE5 million in wages must be paid out to workers by May 17.

The management of the factory, which is owned by Indian investors, said their failure to pay for labor in April was due to a phase of “financial distress,” according to Haitham Saad Eddin, a spokesperson for the Manpower Ministry. Factory administrators said their clients have stalled on payments since March due to the coronavirus pandemic.  

Pursuant to the Manpower Ministry’s agreements, workers reportedly consented to leave the factory premises and take a week’s paid leave, adds Al-Watan.  

The Labor Observatory’s report details a number of other labor strikes provoked by worker layoffs and a failure to disburse salaries. After working for two months without pay, staff at Kafr al-Dawar’s Textile and Weaving Factory reportedly went on strike, while 300 workers from a clothes factory in the city of Qalyoub picketed on April 27, according to the Darb news website.

Beyond the top news, several other items related to COVID-19 made it to the headlines in Monday’s press.

• A hint that the government is still considering a stricter lockdown after Eid came on Sunday night from Dr. Mohamed Awad Tag Eddin, the health advisor to the president.
  •  “We predict an increase in cases,” said Tag Eddin during a phone-in to the Al-Hadath Al-Youm satellite channel on Sunday night. “When we reach a stable number, a few days later cases will decrease, and we will then know that we have passed the peak,” he said. 
  • He explained that the government “may be forced to take a stricter approach” if the rate curves persistently upward.
  • Tag Eddin also commented on the fact that quarantine hospitals nationwide are operating at full capacity and the ongoing plans to bring chest and fever hospitals in as additional quarantine facilities.
     
• It still looks like a definite decision won’t be made until Eid al-Fitr though, despite the Doctors Syndicate’s proposal to tighten lockdown with immediate effect. The plan doesn’t seem to have gathered much steam, according to a couple of news items on Sunday.
  • Shereen Ghaleb, from the Cairo branch of the syndicate, said that she and syndicate head Hussein Khairy were yet to get a response to the letter they sent to the Cabinet on May 4, in which they advised a stricter approach to lockdown and a return to the pre-Ramadan curfew time of 7 pm. 
  • The general secretary of the syndicate has also distanced himself from the letter, saying that it came personally from Khairy and Ghaleb, rather than from the syndicate as a whole.
•  Other high profile public statements on Sunday included:
  • TV host Ahmed Moussa said, “this is too much, we need more awareness,” commenting on people trying to visit relatives at quarantine hospitals.
  • The Cabinet’s Information and Decision Support Center published an infographic claiming that the total non-COVID19 death rate in Egypt fell by 2.8 percent. The death rate for April 2020 was 7.3 percent lower than the death rate in April 2019 despite the pandemic
     
• Across Egypt, reports continued to come in on Sunday of infections among frontline hospital staff, in tandem with the nationwide acceleration in infections.
  • A Syrian doctor reportedly died of COVID-19 at Nagila Hospital, Marsa Matrouh, Egypt’s first quarantine facility. The 49-year-old doctor, who headed Marsa Matrouh’s Rahma Medical Center, was reportedly admitted to the Nagila hospital a week ago.
  • Thirty-eight members of staff at Cairo’s Zahraa Hospital, which is affiliated with Al-Azhar University, have tested positive for COVID-19, including 14 who tested positive during the last few hours. Dr. Mahmoud Sadik, vice president of Al-Azhar University, said that the index case was a staff member who works in the hospital’s kitchen. Sadiq said 100 tests are pending as the hospital attempts to contact-trace and isolate further cases.
  • Eight nurses at the Zagazig University Hospital have tested positive for COVID-19, according to university President Dr. Othman Shaalan. Othman said that the university has undergone full sterilization.
  • A further bump in the number of staff infections at Aswan University Teaching Hospital was also reported on Sunday. Four more staff members tested positive, adding to make a total of 24 of the hospital’s workers who have tested positive to date. Medical staff at the hospital blew the whistle earlier in May in a complaint that was escalated to the Cabinet, as the doctors claimed that administrators had failed to enforce the proper protocol.
  • Deputy Governor of Monufiya Mohamed Moussa dismissed rumors that the governorate had failed to test doctors on their departure from the Bagour Quarantine Hospital. Moussa confirmed that doctors who have completed their rotations at the hospital will be tested as they leave.
• Workplace infections also continue outside the health sector, with a picture of the major incidents on Sunday detailed below:
  • An anesthesiologist tested positive at the Monufiya University Faculty of Medicine after a sweep of random tests was conducted on university staff. The faculty said the doctor last paid a visit to a hospital 10 days ago, and that they are working to sterilize any locations she visited recently.  
  • BLOM BANK has temporarily closed its New Cairo branch after management was informed that a staff member is suspected of having COVID-19.
  • Meanwhile, an accountant at the QNB branch in downtown Cairo died yesterday of COVID-19. The bank sealed off the employee’s floor while keeping work going in the rest of the building. A report from Cairo24 says the accountant was not in a client-facing role.
  • A Sunday email from the American University in Cairo announced that a staff member from the AUC Tahrir Campus has tested positive for COVID-19, and has been transferred to a quarantine hospital.
• In Parliament: 
  • MP Ilhamy Agina is to be investigated by Parliament’s disciplinary committee after the Doctors Syndicate condemned the representative for verbally abusing doctors. The syndicate said Agina had entered the Sherbin Quarantine hospital with a film crew in tow, attempting to catch himself quarreling with medical staff on camera. The syndicate described the move as a cheap publicity stunt that was insulting to doctors who risk their lives daily to treat COVID-19 patients.
  • Osama al-Shahed, the deputy head of the Egyptian National Movement Party founded by former presidential candidate Ahmed Shafiq, asked the government to extend the grant for informal workers for a further three months as the shock of COVID-19 continues to reverberate in the economy. Pensions for May and government grants for informal workers will be issued tomorrow for those who have not collected them yet.
     
• Localized lockdowns enforced by state security personnel continued on Sunday as part of the government’s strategy to prevent the community spread of the virus. 
  • The governorate of Daqahlia has placed the town of Nobrowah and the villages of Besat and Kafr Allam under lockdown after 17 individuals tested positive for COVID-19. The town and villages will remain strictly isolated for the next 14 days. 
  • The governor of Minya has announced that 35 homes in the city of Minya have been quarantined for the coming two weeks after several residents tested positive for COVID-19.
• A fourth group of Egyptians repatriated from Kuwait arrived at the Cairo University dorms yesterday, after Egyptians stranded in the country protested last week
• 271 Egyptians living in Kuwait have been quarantined after coming into contact with individuals who tested positive for COVID-19.
• 100 Chinese citizens who work in the new administrative capital arrived in Cairo on Friday. They will remain in quarantine for the next 14 days before being allowed to return to work on projects at the new capital.