Coronavirus runs rampant in rebel pocket in Syria

The pace is dizzying at the largest isolation hospital in Syria's northwestern city of Idlib, where ICU beds fill up almost overnight.

As one patient dies of the coronavirus and is wheeled out, another is whisked in to take his place.

COVID-19 infections in the last opposition-controlled territory in Syria have been increasing rapidly.

While bombs currently are not falling outside and the wounded don't crowd bloodstained corridors amid a shaky cease-fire in the civil war, the medical staff is still overwhelmed with intensive care unit beds full of patients gasping for air.

Since July, the region is recording 300-500 infections a day, and the number is rising fast.

Infection rates jumped nearly twentyfold between September and October, the U.N. said.

Since then, it has climbed 300%, with nearly 11,500 cases recorded by Nov. 16, up from 8,100 a week earlier.

The number of infections is probably much higher.

Cities have been hit hardest, but workers fear the virus will take hold in overcrowded camps.

The area, battered by repeated military offensives from the government of President Bashar Assad, is home to nearly 4 million people, most of them displaced and living in tent camps or unfinished buildings.

Social distancing is nearly impossible, with a single tent or temporary shelter housing between nine to two dozen people, some who have been repeatedly displaced.

As winter rains began, bringing with it renewed rumblings of war, fear is growing that exhausted medical teams may be unable to cope.

The pandemic, which has severely tested even developed countries, is the biggest challenge yet for Syria's health sector, already depleted by years of conflict.

According to the U.N. task force coordinating efforts, there are at least 142 ICU beds and 155 breathing machines in use in the area.

Seven of eight hospitals in northwestern Syria that are equipped to treat the virus are already overwhelmed.

Authorities are pacing themselves, deploying equipment and supplies where needed in war-scarred areas.