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COVID-19: the view from Rabat
Why would an American choose lockdown life under martial law in Morocco? A conversation with Iranian-American global health physician Nassim Assefi on different cultural approaches to COVID responses, coping as a single mother in quarantine, and navigating the precarious line between safety and sanity.
When the pandemic hit, Iranian-American physician and global health expert Dr Nassim Assefi actively chose to stay put in Rabat with her 8-year-old daughter rather than return home to Seattle, despite Morocco’s strictly enforced lockdown measures. The country’s major cities have seen the longest and strictest quarantines in the world: starting on March 16 and ending just a few days ago, on July 11.
As a self-described global nomad, Nassim has been to more than 60 countries, including to Iran for public health research, to Afghanistan to reduce maternal and infant mortality, and most recently to Rabat — where she was living at the time of this interview — to work with refugees and immigrants.
During the height of the pandemic last May, I called Nassim to get her uniquely global perspective on the crisis as a doctor — and as a fellow single mother…
