Seven coronavirus patients died on Saturday after a medical oxygen outage at the main government hospital in the Jordanian city of Al Salt.
The deaths prompted health minister Nazir Obeidat to resign. Prime Minister Bisher Al Khasawneh said Mr Obeidat, a professor of medicine, was fired.
Interior minister Mazen Faraya was later appointed by Royal Decree to run the health ministry, the Jordan News Agency reported.
Mr Obeidat said there had been a delay of an hour in refilling oxygen tanks at the hospital.
"Between 6am and 7am, an oxygen shortage occurred. Oxygen levels in the tanks went down," he told reporters at the hospital.
"Replacement oxygen was put in but in my personal opinion, for sure it was not enough."
Adnan Abbas, the health ministry coroner, said the patients who died were suffering from Covid-19 and that post mortems on four of them showed their deaths were caused by a “severe shortage of oxygen”.
King Abdullah visited the hospital after the tragedy. Mobile phone footage shared on Facebook showed the king talking sternly to a hospital official. He was in military fatigues and wore a black face mask.
The newly built complex was ringed with heavy security to keep away hundreds of relatives of the dead who gathered outside after news of the deaths broke. Al Salt, a city of 90,000 people about 20 kilometres north-west of Amman, is home to influential Jordanian clans.
Mr Al Khasawneh said the king "became angry" after the incident, and that Mr Obeidat was fired.
"This anger definitely hit all of us. The anger regarding this government mixed with shame because of this fault," Mr Al Khasawneh said in a statement he read on official television.
He said the government bears "full responsibility" for the incident, but that a judicial investigation he has asked for should take its course.
The king appointed Mr Al Khasawneh, a former diplomat, amid a sharp rise in coronavirus deaths in October. He is Jordan's 12th prime minister in the past two decades.
Mr Obeidat said an investigation started by the attorney general would determine the exact reason for the hospital deaths.
"We have to be patient. The investigation would need to be medical and technical. Everyone who fell short of doing their job should be held accountable," he said.
"I as health minister bear full responsibility. I submitted my resignation in relation to this issue."
Mr Obeidat is the third minister in Jordan forced to quit because of a health scandal in the past few weeks.
King Abdullah last week replaced the interior and justice ministers after they breached coronavirus rules by attending a large banquet at a restaurant.
The two men, together with Mr Obeidat, were among the highest-level officials in the Cabinet in charge of enforcing the rules.
Jordan is facing a surge in Covid-19 infections attributed mainly to the fast transmission of the British variant of the virus.
Mr Obeidat said last week that the Covid-19 contagion has spread far beyond the official data on infections suggest. The health ministry has recorded 464,856 cases of the virus and 5,224 deaths so far.
Last week, the authorities announced stricter measures to curb the spread of Covid-19, lengthening daily curfew hours and reimposing a full lockdown on Fridays.
The government announced 8,300 new cases of Covid-19 on Thursday, the highest daily number of cases since the coronavirus first surfaced in the kingdom a year ago.
Jordan is in recession and unemployment is officially at a record high of 23.9 per cent. The economy has been stagnant for a decade and the coronavirus has deepened the country’s economic problems, reducing domestic demand and remittances, a well as revenue from tourism.
Match statistics
Abu Dhabi Harlequins 36 Bahrain 32
Harlequins
Tries: Penalty 2, Stevenson, Teasdale, Semple
Cons: Stevenson 2
Pens: Stevenson
Bahrain
Tries: Wallace 2, Heath, Evans, Behan
Cons: Radley 2
Pen: Radley
Man of the match: Craig Nutt (Harlequins)
Sinopharm vaccine explained
The Sinopharm vaccine was created using techniques that have been around for decades.
“This is an inactivated vaccine. Simply what it means is that the virus is taken, cultured and inactivated," said Dr Nawal Al Kaabi, chair of the UAE's National Covid-19 Clinical Management Committee.
"What is left is a skeleton of the virus so it looks like a virus, but it is not live."
This is then injected into the body.
"The body will recognise it and form antibodies but because it is inactive, we will need more than one dose. The body will not develop immunity with one dose," she said.
"You have to be exposed more than one time to what we call the antigen."
The vaccine should offer protection for at least months, but no one knows how long beyond that.
Dr Al Kaabi said early vaccine volunteers in China were given shots last spring and still have antibodies today.
“Since it is inactivated, it will not last forever," she said.
Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere
Director: Scott Cooper
Starring: Jeremy Allen White, Odessa Young, Jeremy Strong
Rating: 4/5
Who's who in Yemen conflict
Houthis: Iran-backed rebels who occupy Sanaa and run unrecognised government
Yemeni government: Exiled government in Aden led by eight-member Presidential Leadership Council
Southern Transitional Council: Faction in Yemeni government that seeks autonomy for the south
Habrish 'rebels': Tribal-backed forces feuding with STC over control of oil in government territory
Ten tax points to be aware of in 2026
1. Domestic VAT refund amendments: request your refund within five years
If a business does not apply for the refund on time, they lose their credit.
2. E-invoicing in the UAE
Businesses should continue preparing for the implementation of e-invoicing in the UAE, with 2026 a preparation and transition period ahead of phased mandatory adoption.
3. More tax audits
Tax authorities are increasingly using data already available across multiple filings to identify audit risks.
4. More beneficial VAT and excise tax penalty regime
Tax disputes are expected to become more frequent and more structured, with clearer administrative objection and appeal processes. The UAE has adopted a new penalty regime for VAT and excise disputes, which now mirrors the penalty regime for corporate tax.
5. Greater emphasis on statutory audit
There is a greater need for the accuracy of financial statements. The International Financial Reporting Standards standards need to be strictly adhered to and, as a result, the quality of the audits will need to increase.
6. Further transfer pricing enforcement
Transfer pricing enforcement, which refers to the practice of establishing prices for internal transactions between related entities, is expected to broaden in scope. The UAE will shortly open the possibility to negotiate advance pricing agreements, or essentially rulings for transfer pricing purposes.
7. Limited time periods for audits
Recent amendments also introduce a default five-year limitation period for tax audits and assessments, subject to specific statutory exceptions. While the standard audit and assessment period is five years, this may be extended to up to 15 years in cases involving fraud or tax evasion.
8. Pillar 2 implementation
Many multinational groups will begin to feel the practical effect of the Domestic Minimum Top-Up Tax (DMTT), the UAE's implementation of the OECD’s global minimum tax under Pillar 2. While the rules apply for financial years starting on or after January 1, 2025, it is 2026 that marks the transition to an operational phase.
9. Reduced compliance obligations for imported goods and services
Businesses that apply the reverse-charge mechanism for VAT purposes in the UAE may benefit from reduced compliance obligations.
10. Substance and CbC reporting focus
Tax authorities are expected to continue strengthening the enforcement of economic substance and Country-by-Country (CbC) reporting frameworks. In the UAE, these regimes are increasingly being used as risk-assessment tools, providing tax authorities with a comprehensive view of multinational groups’ global footprints and enabling them to assess whether profits are aligned with real economic activity.
Contributed by Thomas Vanhee and Hend Rashwan, Aurifer
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