by Mahmoud Fouly, Marwa Yahya
CAIRO, March 18 (Xinhua) -- At one of the local coffee shops in Giza province near the Egyptian capital Cairo, the waiters served tea and coffee to their customers for the first time in disposable paper cups and unusually provided them with bottled instead of tap water.
Mohamed Abdel-Ghany, 40, a co-owner and waiter at the coffee shop, said that the new service is initiated in line with the recent precautionary measures taken by the government to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Egypt has recently taken tough measures to control the spread of the epidemic including shutting down schools, universities and all classes, suspending flights, reducing employees and prohibiting smoking hookah or shisha at coffee shops.
"We support the precautionary measures taken by the country. We stopped serving the tobacco water pipe known as shisha and we started to use disposable paper cups to help prevent the spread of the virus," the waiter told Xinhua at the coffee shop.
An owner of another coffee shop in Cairo, Dahi Saad, also in his 40s, imposed wearing face masks and gloves on his waiters in response to the government guidelines to control the spread of the novel coronavirus.
"For our own safety and the safety our customers, we also started to sell takeaway teas and serve bottled water," he said.
Egypt has confirmed 196 COVID-19 cases so far, including six deaths and 26 recoveries, according to the latest figures of the country's health ministry.
Meanwhile, the government has been launching massive campaigns nationwide to make sure the coffee shops are committed to the shisha ban and seize the shishas from those irresponsive.
It has also sterilized public means of transport and government offices dealing with the public.
The government's precautionary measures prompted many Egyptians to change their daily routines, habits and regular activities whether related to their work or their leisure activities.
Some confined themselves at home, some started to work at home instead of going to office, and others stopped daily habits and activities like smoking shisha and going to the gym.
Mohamed Yousry, an 18-year-old high school student, said that he had to stop going to school and exercising at the gym over coronavirus concerns. The young man said that his daily life activities "are almost suspended."
As for Ibrahim Abdel-Moniem, 54, he used to work for a cinema that has recently halted its shows in response to the government's guidelines.
"We have been given a month vacation due to the virus. I stopped going to work and to the coffee shop where I used to see my friends. We just check on one another by phone," the man told Xinhua.
"All I do now is staying at home, reading the newspapers and watching TV at night," he added.
Although Egyptians are rarely seen wearing face masks in the streets, public places and means of transport, pharmacists say that they have sold large quantities of face masks and sanitizers until they ran out.
"Our pharmacy ran out of face masks and sanitizers a few days ago. We asked our providers for more but we haven't received anything yet. I believe they are currently being sold at higher prices in the black market," said an Egyptian pharmacist who declined to give his name.
Asking a couple of pharmacies in Giza and Cairo for face masks, Xinhua's correspondent found no single piece of the high-demand product.
In an unusual scene in such districts, Youssef Mohamed, a 19-year-old student at a technical institute, was walking in one of the streets of the over-crowded Boulak el-Dakrour neighborhood in Giza wearing face mask and gloves.
He lamented that he doesn't see a lot of Egyptians doing the same and that some even see him "funny" with his face mask and gloves.
"It should be weird to see people without face masks or gloves these days, not the opposite. We should be willing to change our habits in such circumstances," the Egyptian young man told Xinhua.
