COVID-19: Kurdistan Region records over 790 new cases in 24 hours

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Kurdistan Region’s Health Ministry on Thursday announced over 790 new COVID-19 cases along with 31 deaths in the past 24 hours.

The ministry’s daily statement said it had conducted 6,017 tests during the past 24 hours, raising the total of such tests to 509,234 since the outbreak began in the Kurdistan Region in early March.

According to the health ministry, the total number of infections in the Kurdistan Region reached 53,549 cases. Adding Thursday’s death figures, the region now has 1,937 deaths due to the novel coronavirus.

Health officials say 33,650 coronavirus patients have recovered, but it is important to note that a patient classified as a “recovery” means they are no longer being actively treated by health professionals, not that they have fully recovered. Increasingly, medical experts recognize that COVID-19 symptoms, some of them serious, often continue long after an individual’s formal recovery and that various other symptoms could be permanent.

On Wednesday, Sulaimani Governor Haval Abubakir warned that if the current dangerous trend of COVID-19 continues – without taking necessary actions against the virus – other province’s condition will be like Sulaimani.

“I assure other [Kurdistan Region] provinces in the upcoming two weeks, your condition [regarding COVID-19] will be like Sulaimani,” Abubakir told reporters during a press conference.

The governor’s remarks come as a day earlier, Sulaimani Health Directorate announced 15 fatalities in 24 hours in the province, warning that “Sulaimani is in a dangerous situation that has never been like this before.”

At the beginning of the pandemic, the province was the first to record the initial COVID-19 cases. Later, Sulaimani became the epicenter of the outbreak in the Kurdistan Region. As of Wednesday, the province has recorded 17,047 cases since the beginning of the pandemic along with 972 fatalities – the highest death toll.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany