Back to the complete issue
Sunday, 22 March 2020

Talk shows cover covid-19 updates, mosques, churches shutting down

All covid, all the time: The nation’s talking heads — like the rest of the world — continued to be squarely focused on the coronavirus last night.

The daily covid-19 update: Masaa DMC's Eman El Hosary (watch, runtime: 1:22) and Min Masr’s Amr Khalil (watch, runtime: 2:11) reviewed the latest covid-19 updates from the Health Ministry, noting an additional nine cases on Saturday have brought the total number of confirmed cases to 294. El Hekaya’s Amr Adib spoke by phone with ministry spokesman Khaled Megahed who said that the country’s containment efforts have so far been successful as they haven’t had to resort to the extreme measures prepared in the event that the case count tops 1k. He also noted that the rate of new cases has been decreasing in the past few days (watch, runtime: 2:47), (watch, runtime: 1:47).

Houses of worship closed: Al Hayah Al Youm’s Hossam Hadad covered the Endowments Ministry’s decision to close all mosques and suspend Friday prayers for two weeks, and the Coptic Orthodox Church’s decision to close all churches and suspend mass and other religious activities until further notice (watch, runtime: 6:56), (watch, runtime: 5:21). Adib also covered the news (watch, runtime: 5:53), as did El Hosary (watch, runtime: 0:47),(watch, runtime: 1:06), who also noted the Tourism Ministry’s decision to close museums and archeological sites (watch, runtime: 0:18).

University final exams postponed: Hadad covered the Higher Education Ministry’s announcement that end-of-term exams will be cancelled should the two-week onsite suspension of studies continue. Students will only sit for end of year exams, which have been postponed until after 30 May. (watch, runtime: 2:35). Masaa DMC’s Eman El Hosary (watch, runtime: 0:55) and Min Masr’s Amr Khalil (watch, runtime: 2:29) also had the report.

CBE hikes e-payment limit: Hosary noted the Central Bank of Egypt’s decision to raise the limits of electronic payments via mobile phones to EGP 30k pounds per day and EGP 100k per month (watch, runtime: 0:16). We have more on this in this morning’s Speed Round, below.

Pharma giant Sanofi will announce its potential covid-19 treatment within weeks, the company's chairman and managing director in Egypt and Sudan Christelle Saghbin told Adib on Friday night (watch: 5:14). The company has tested a rheumatoid medicine on 36 covid-19 patients and has shown results in 70% of the cases in under a week.

Enterprise is a daily publication of Enterprise Ventures LLC, an Egyptian limited liability company (commercial register 83594), and a subsidiary of Inktank Communications. Summaries are intended for guidance only and are provided on an as-is basis; kindly refer to the source article in its original language prior to undertaking any action. Neither Enterprise Ventures nor its staff assume any responsibility or liability for the accuracy of the information contained in this publication, whether in the form of summaries or analysis. © 2022 Enterprise Ventures LLC.

Enterprise is available without charge thanks to the generous support of HSBC Egypt (tax ID: 204-901-715), the leading corporate and retail lender in Egypt; EFG Hermes (tax ID: 200-178-385), the leading financial services corporation in frontier emerging markets; SODIC (tax ID: 212-168-002), a leading Egyptian real estate developer; SomaBay (tax ID: 204-903-300), our Red Sea holiday partner; Infinity (tax ID: 474-939-359), the ultimate way to power cities, industries, and homes directly from nature right here in Egypt; CIRA (tax ID: 200-069-608), the leading providers of K-12 and higher level education in Egypt; Orascom Construction (tax ID: 229-988-806), the leading construction and engineering company building infrastructure in Egypt and abroad; Moharram & Partners (tax ID: 616-112-459), the leading public policy and government affairs partner; Palm Hills Developments (tax ID: 432-737-014), a leading developer of commercial and residential properties; Mashreq (tax ID: 204-898-862), the MENA region’s leading homegrown personal and digital bank; Industrial Development Group (IDG) (tax ID:266-965-253), the leading builder of industrial parks in Egypt; Hassan Allam Properties (tax ID:  553-096-567), one of Egypt’s most prominent and leading builders; and Saleh, Barsoum & Abdel Aziz (tax ID: 220-002-827), the leading audit, tax and accounting firm in Egypt.