People often believe that celebrities are immune from diseases and the problems that afflict their daily lives.
However, the coronavirus pandemic has quickly changed that view as it ravages through Lebanese celebrities and dozens of high-profile individuals.
Stars like Assi El-Halani have caught the virus; others, like Naji Ousta, have gone to the hospital to deal with their symptoms. Some were less fortunate, like the late Elias Rahbani, who died of the illness.
Recently, Minister of Health, Dr. Hamad Hassan, and his son Karim, also a doctor, were infected.
Just last week, when asked by journalist Marcel Ghanem about how he had managed to evade the virus despite his activity, Hassan merely smiled, having no idea that he would soon get the virus.
Indeed, as veteran Al-Jadeed journalist George Salibi put it in his interview with Asharq Al-Awsat: “Our lives have come to resemble horror flicks. We are afraid of the people closest to us, and we run away if we see someone we know on the street.”
Politicians have not been spared. Former minister May Chidiac and MPs Mohammad Hajjar, Jebran Bassil, Mohammed al-Safadi and Ashraf Rifi, to name a few, have all been infected by the disease.
