Sunday, March 22nd – Sirens wailed in Tripoli this morning as the Lebanese Red Cross rushed to aid a supermarket employee who reportedly collapsed on the job.
Moments after he was taken away, the police intervened to close the supermarket entirely. Naturally, this caused quite the coronavirus scare in the neighborhood.
We had a source in the LRC take a look at the photos above, and she believes this is not a coronavirus case.
She says that when dealing with COVID-19-related cases, the Red Cross team would have to wear the advanced PPE (Hazmat) for protection. Fortunately in this picture, the team is dressed in ‘intermediate PPE’. We hope she’s right!
So what did happen to the poor employee? While some believe he has been showing some symptoms of the virus, such as high fever, many reports say the employee merely fell and broke his leg.
Nevertheless, the police locked down the store and we’ll find out soon enough whether the employee tests positive for coronavirus or not.
The scene undoubtedly caused panic in the neighborhood as many people buy their groceries from that place.
With the rapid spread of the coronavirus, the mere sound of ambulance sirens can cause corona-anxiety. Top that off with local small-town gossip and the spread misinformation a.k.a fake news (thanks to trolls on WhatsApp), and you’ll never rest a day in your life!
For example, some rumors allege that the management was aware of their employee’s high fever, yet still asked him to come to work. We definitely hope that’s not true or we’ll have to use the C-word, “Covidiot”.
A coronavirus case here would be quite ironic since this particular supermarket chain has been advertising its precautionary measures to reassure its customers that the management is doing everything it can to fight the virus.
