The epidemic will affect the situation in the Middle East.

Judging from the experience of Middle Eastern countries in responding to MERS in recent years and the current situation of various countries in fighting epidemics, the ability of Middle Eastern countries to respond to public health events is relatively limited, and the prospects are not optimistic. . First, the overall medical management capabilities of Middle Eastern countries are relatively weak. In 2013 and 2014, virus outbreaks occurred in many hospitals in Saudi Arabia due to inadequate ventilation systems and inadequate disinfection and isolation measures, leading to cross-infection between people infected with the virus and visiting family members, other patients in the hospital, and medical staff. On the other hand, some Middle Eastern countries lack professionalism among medical teams. For example, public hospitals in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, experienced panic caused by the collective resignation of infectious disease medical staff.

Second, the technical level of disease control in the Middle East needs to be improved. For most Middle Eastern countries, big data is still a new technology, and experience in using big data for government work is very limited. Previously, when dealing with MERS, few Middle Eastern countries used big data as a basis for decision-making and used big data for traffic tracking, fixed-point surveys, and economic impact calculations. Additionally, in 2014, Saudi Arabia encountered statistical errors in disease data, making it difficult to prevent and control the epidemic. Third, the governance capabilities of many countries in the Middle East are weak. There was regime change in Egypt and other countries during the first wave of the Arab Spring in 2011, and another round of unrest in Algeria and other countries in 2019. For these countries, the struggle for factional power and the struggle for transformation constitute the political theme of the Arab Spring era. The government authority of these countries is insufficient and it is difficult to effectively implement epidemic prevention regulations.

For countries not affected by the above factors, such as Kuwait and Oman, due to insufficient coordination between the central and local governments, the government's administrative efficiency is low, lazy governments and governments are more powerful. , the political situation is more stable. Inertia often occurs and the situation has escalated, making it difficult for these countries to carry out orderly social mobilization and effective epidemic prevention and control. Fourth, gathering people from religious activities may accelerate the spread of the new crown epidemic in the Middle East. The current epicenter of the epidemic in Iran is Qom, the holy city of Shia Islam. Due to frequent religious activities and high-density crowds, the spread and epidemic of this epidemic are extremely easy to occur. Shia jurists are an important voice and influence in Iranian politics. Faced with the rising number of infections, some religious conservatives still refuse to close religious sites, such as the Temple of Qom, which also makes epidemic prevention work difficult.