SHARE For the past two weeks Fawzi Kesserwany and his friends have been handling phone calls from distressed Covid-19 patients scrambling for medical supplies amid a surge in Covid-19 cases. The engineer co-founded a small activist group called Defend Your Rights that received 100 calls in a week when it launched an oximeter-sharing initiative at the end of January. The devices are used by Covid-19 patients to monitor oxygen levels. Although he is not a medical professional, Mr Kesserwany says he feels compelled to help. “We couldn’t just stand idle and watch as people died,” he tells The National. “In the absence of the state, we had to act.”