Skip to content
September 28, 2023
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Instagram
  • Reddit
  • Telegram
  • TikTok
  • LinkedIn
  • Discord
Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond

Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond

From Venezuela and made by Venezuelan Chavistas

Primary Menu
  • News
  • Opinion
  • About us
    • About us
    • Who we are – Becoming a Volunteer
    • Editorial guidelines for contributors
    • Our Sources
      • Venezuelan Sources
      • International Sources
    • Contact us
  • Categories
    • Politics
    • Economy
    • Security and Defense
    • International
      • Africa
      • Asia
      • Europe
      • Oceania
      • US/Canada
    • Latin America and ALBA-TCP
      • South America
      • Central America and the Caribbean (+Mexico)
    • Ideology-Commune-Labor
    • Health-Education-Sport-Culture-Technology
    • Solidarity and Social Movements
    • OT Specials
  • Support Us
Light/Dark Button
YouTube Channel
  • Home
  • News
  • Johns Hopkins COVID-19 Map Faulted for Erasing Palestinians
  • International
  • News

Johns Hopkins COVID-19 Map Faulted for Erasing Palestinians

March 30, 2020

The constantly updated world map and dashboard published by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering has become a vital resource for everyone to track the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, health and human rights experts are faulting it for erasing Palestinians.

Johns Hopkins appears to have heard that criticism and reversed a decision to merge data about COVID-19 cases among Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with cases from Israel.

But the experts say that does not go far enough.

RELATED CONTENT: The Palestinian People Were Robbed of Their Homeland and Their Ancient History was Stolen

🗺️ Have questions about the Johns Hopkins #COVID19 dashboard?
Check out this FAQ: https://t.co/hd5szbiQrQ

— Johns Hopkins University (@JohnsHopkins) March 14, 2020

In a letter published by the medical journal The Lancet this week, Dr. Rita Giacaman and Rania Muhareb noted that the Johns Hopkins dashboard was “initially listing data recorded by the Palestinian health ministry in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip under its entry for Palestine.”

Data for Israel was listed separately.

However, on 10 March, Johns Hopkins “replaced the entry for Palestine with oPt” – which stands for “occupied Palestinian territories.”

Giacaman and Muhareb observed that the next day, “the oPt entry was removed and its figures merged with the entry for Israel.”

As a result, “Palestinians were unable to use the dashboard to track the spread of COVID-19 in the occupied Palestinian territory,” Muhareb told The Electronic Intifada on Friday.

RELATED CONTENT: Bolsonaro Denounced in the IACHR for Endangering the Health of Brazilians During the Pandemic

“With cases rapidly increasing, it was also no longer possible to know whether the cases listed under Israel included those recorded in the occupied Palestinian territory, or whether Palestinians had been faded out with time.”

Giacaman teaches at the Institute of Community and Public Health at Birzeit University and Muhareb is a legal advocate at the Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq.

Inadequate response
Given Johns Hopkins’ historic ties to the slave trade, and its recent acknowledgment that it is built on land traditionally owned by the Piscataway people, Giacaman and Muhareb urged the university not to further “contribute to the erasure of Indigenous peoples across the globe.”

They contacted the Center for Systems Science and Engineering twice since 15 March, but had heard no reply by 25 March.

However, as of 26 March there is now a separate entry for “West Bank and Gaza” on the Johns Hopkins dashboard. As of this writing it shows 91 confirmed COVID-19 cases.

Israel, listed separately, has more than 3,000 cases.

While that at least separates out the data, Muhareb told The Electronic Intifada that the “West Bank and Gaza” entry “remains inconsistent with international law since it follows the United States State Department’s designations, which have repeatedly violated the prohibition on the acquisition of territory by force, undermined Palestinians’ rights and disregarded Israel’s prolonged military occupation.”

Muhareb said that she and Giacaman have again written to Johns Hopkins to say that the new “West Bank and Gaza” entry “fails to adequately address the situation while it further entrenches the erasure of Palestine and Palestinians from the world map.”

Johns Hopkins’ “first instinct in listing Palestine or the occupied Palestinian territory was the right one and we urged that the ‘West Bank and Gaza’ entry be amended accordingly,” Muhareb added.

“Biomedical injustice”
Palestinians endure entirely different conditions from Israelis in the face of the pandemic.

Indeed, Palestinians must face two enemies: the new coronavirus and Israeli military occupation which hampers their ability to protect themselves and exposes them to further danger.

Gaza is at particularly grave risk, facing what the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem calls a “nightmare scenario” if the virus spreads there more widely.

As of Friday, nine cases had been confirmed in Gaza. All were people in quarantine and there have been no reports of community spread.

B’Tselem has emphasized that Israel’s nearly 13 years of blockade and the resulting collapse of the economy, health and sanitation infrastructure have plunged Gaza into “the throes of a humanitarian disaster – created entirely by Israel.”

This point is underscored in another letter published by The Lancet this week, which urges that “the international community must act now to end structural violence” that Palestinians face.

It is signed by Muhareb, Dr. David Mills, a pediatric emergency doctor at the Boston Children’s Hospital who partners with the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, Dr. Bram Wispelwey, a physician at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital who works with Palestinians to strengthen their healthcare systems, and Dr. Mads Gilbert, an emergency surgeon who treated the wounded during Israel’s 2014 assault on Gaza.

“A COVID-19 pandemic that further cripples the Gaza Strip’s health care system should not be viewed as an inevitable biomedical phenomenon experienced equally by the world’s population,” they write, “but as a preventable biosocial injustice rooted in decades of Israeli oppression and international complicity in the struggle for the health, fundamental rights, and self-determination of all Palestinians.”

 

 

Featured image: A Palestinian bride and groom wearing masks celebrate their wedding at home in Khan Younis on 26 March, after authorities in the Gaza Strip closed wedding halls as a preventive measure against the COVID-19 pandemic. Ashraf AmraAPA images

Source URL: Electronic Intifada

 

Don't want to be a victim of the Algorithm?

SIGN UP TO RECEIVE OUR WEEKLY DIGEST WITH ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT VENEZUELA AND BEYOND

We don’t spam! Read our privacy policy for more info.

orinocotribune
Website | + posts
  • orinocotribune
    https://orinocotribune.com/author/orinocotribune/
    An Ecopetrol refinery in Barrancabermeja, Colombia, on February 15, 2022. Photo: Ivan Valencia/Bloomberg/File photo.
    September 28, 2023
    Colombia's State Oil Company Seeks OFAC License to Conduct Business with PDVSA
  • orinocotribune
    https://orinocotribune.com/author/orinocotribune/
    Composite image of PA soldiers with a background of the face of Abbas and flags of the US and the Israeli settler entities. Photo: al-Carmel News.
    September 28, 2023
    Why Is Washington Arming the Palestinian Authority with Israeli Approval?
  • orinocotribune
    https://orinocotribune.com/author/orinocotribune/
    Headquarters of Guyana's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, located in Georgetown, capital of Guyana. Photo: File photo.
    September 28, 2023
    Essequibo Dispute: Guyana Appoints New Ambassador to Venezuela, Venezuela Rejects Guyanese Misrepresentation at United Nations
  • orinocotribune
    https://orinocotribune.com/author/orinocotribune/
    Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Denis Moncada speaking at the 78th United Nations General Assembly in New York. Photo: United Nations.
    September 27, 2023
    Nicaragua Condemns Imperial Interference Against Peoples of the World at UN
Tags: coronavirus COVID-19 Free Palestine Palestine

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)

Continue Reading

Previous Previous post:

Bolsonaro Denounced in the IACHR for Endangering the Health of Brazilians During the Pandemic

Next Next post:

Nicaraguans in Costa Rica: A Manufactured “Refugee” Crisis

Subscribe to Weekly Digest

We keep your data private and share your data only with third parties that make this service possible. Read our Privacy Policy.

Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription.

NEWS: MOST POPULAR

Calendar

September 2023
M T W T F S S
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
252627282930  
« Aug    

Categories

OPINION: MOST POPULAR

We are on Telegram


Receive our news directly in your cell phone or PC, join us on our TELEGRAM channel.

 

We are on Discord


Join our Discord server to check our content without algorithms and to interact directly with our team.

The original content by Orinoco Tribune is free to share and it is licensed under CC BY 4.0

We are on Reddit

If you are more into REDDIT, join our Orinoco Tribune subreddit.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Instagram
  • Reddit
  • Telegram
  • TikTok
  • LinkedIn
  • Discord
Copyleft, No rights reserved.

W E    N E E D    Y O U R    S U P P O R T

Orinoco Tribune operates without any advertising. We are not funded by any governments, think tanks, or large institutions. Our operations are entirely funded by readers like you. Our most generous donors have been targeted by the US for supporting socialist causes or are financially struggling. As a result, their accounts have been frozen, cutting off a significant revenue stream and severely threatening the sustainability of Orinoco Tribune.

We urge our readers and supporters, especially those not currently doing so, to help us with small donation (such as US $5 or $10/month) via Patreon, via Paypal/Credit-Card/crypto or via paper checks. Readers and supporters like you will allow us to continue bringing you progressive and hard-hitting news from Latin America, the Global South, and the world.

Help us reach our goal of $650 in monthly Patreon donations. We are counting on you as our only source of financial support!