‘On the Edge of the Abyss’: Covid-19 in Beirut

Chasing Life

CNN

Nutrition, Mental Health, Health & Fitness

4.5 • 8K Ratings

🗓️ 13 August 2020

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On the morning of the deadly explosion that tore through the Lebanese capital of Beirut, the city’s main public hospital was already approaching full capacity from coronavirus patients. Now, with hospitals heavily damaged and overwhelmed with the injured from the blast, how does the city deal with the rising threat of the pandemic? CNN’s Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta speaks with CNN International Correspondent Ben Wedeman in Beirut. To learn more about how CNN protects listener privacy, visit cnn.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Last week on August 4th, shortly after 6pm, there was a huge explosion in the city of Beirut
0:08.5	in Lebanon.
0:10.3	The blast came from the city's main port, and it was so strong that it was felt 150
0:15.7	miles away in Cyprus.
0:18.7	Then a second blast sent a huge mushroom cloud up over the city.
0:24.0	Nothing prepared them for this.
0:26.1	A shockwave so strong, so vast, many who survived say they thought Doomsday had arrived.
0:33.6	The blast has been linked to a long neglected stash of potentially explosive chemicals.
0:39.4	Most of the buildings near the port were destroyed or damaged by the explosion.
0:43.6	That includes the city's main grain silo, which has caused fears about a major weed shortage
0:50.4	in the next few weeks.
0:52.4	I've seen more, I've filmed more, but it took 30 days to do the same destruction.
0:59.8	We had it in one explosion.
1:02.4	In before and after photos of the blast, you can see the city's entire port one moment
1:07.9	and a 400 foot wide crater in the next.
1:12.0	More than 170 people have been killed.
1:15.1	Over 6,000 have been injured and hundreds of thousands are now homeless.
1:20.2	This is all happening in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
1:24.4	Then we went to the hospital.
1:25.8	Hospitals couldn't take us.
1:27.4	There were like no rooms anymore, nothing.
1:30.9	We went to another hospital outside of the city and it was like people forgot about
	...

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