The Baseera Centre for Public Opinion Research issued a report in March which said that more than 2.9 million Egyptians could have been infected with coronavirus in 2020.
The centre conducted a telephone survey to determine the rates of infection, tests conducted by infected people, and their symptoms.
The government report stated that 67 per cent of the survey sample sought refuge in places belonging to the private sector and 24 per cent in government centres. Many compared the meagre figures that the Ministry of Health announces daily, around 1,000 new cases, with what the Baseera Centre revealed, which is more than 10 times the government figures.
The total number of cases announced by the Ministry of Health until May is only about 28,000. Media professionals confirm that the real numbers are higher than the official numbers. A few days ago, a journalist working for a channel owned by the Egyptian intelligence said that the real numbers of daily new cases might reach about 70,000. In the same context, the Egyptian Ministry of Health announced that the number of registrants on the government corona vaccine reservation website has risen to 1.9 million.
The ministry indicated that about 750,000 had been vaccinated so far, considering the availability of approximately 2.5 million doses inside the country, amid criticism of the slow procedures for vaccinating Egyptians. For his part, former Egyptian Vice President Mohamed ElBaradei criticised the Egyptian government for ignoring the seriousness of the virus and wrote on Twitter that the precautionary measures should be imposed using the force of law and vaccination against the virus should be rolled out as quickly and widely as possible.
