An Opportunity in Crisis? Covid-19 and State-community Relations in Taiz

When many parts of the world began to shut down public life to prevent the spread of the coronavirus in March 2020, observers hoped that Yemen was better placed to avoid the impact of the pandemic due to the near-shut down of international travel.(1) Unfortunately, the virus did not spare Yemen, and added more hardship to a country already facing devastating economic, health, and political crises. The Yemen Supreme National Emergency for COVID-19, a body created by the internationally recognized government of Yemen (IRG), as of March 31, 2021, puts the number of infections at 44,357 and 888 deaths.(2) In June 2020, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) put the coronavirus known fatality rate in Yemen at 25 percent, four times higher than the global average.(3) Despite the IRG’s attempts to be transparent about the spread of the coronavirus, it spread virtually undetected as the authorities lacked testing capacities and the necessary resources to control the virus. As a result, authorities throughout the country downplayed the virus.