Politics

COVID-19: Kurdistan Region records 567 new infections

Officials from the autonomous Kurdistan Region announced on Friday that government health workers had recorded over 560 new coronavirus cases over the past day, raising total infections there so far to 92,577 since the start of the pandemic in early March.

Halgurd Sherwani 2020/11/20 11:55

kurdistan COVID-19 KRG Kurdistan Region Pandemic Coronavirus

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Officials from the autonomous Kurdistan Region announced on Friday that government health workers had recorded over 560 new coronavirus cases over the past day, raising total infections there so far to 92,577 since the start of the pandemic in early March.

In its daily coronavirus update, the regional health ministry reported that 567 coronavirus tests returned positive out of nearly 5,000 completed in the previous 24 hours.

On Wednesday, Erbil Governor Firsat Sofi died from COVID-19 after testing positive for the virus some four weeks earlier.

Officials have blamed the current spike in the number of patients, often over 1,000 new daily cases, primarily on the public’s failure to follow health measures enacted to stem the spread of the disease.

Following alarming surges in new cases, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has mandated that face masks be worn in public, with a fine of 20,000 Iraqi dinars (about $16) for those who fail to comply.

Health officials announced this week that over 31,000 COVID-19 patients are currently being treated for the disease in hospitals and clinics throughout the Kurdistan Region.

The health ministry says that over 56,000 people have recovered from the coronavirus, but it is important to note that a “recovery” classification only indicates that a patient is no longer being actively treated by health professionals—not that they have fully recovered from the disease.

Increasingly, medical experts recognize that COVID-19 symptoms, some of them quite serious, often continue long after an individual’s formal recovery and that various other effects, such as significant lung damage, could be permanent.

The coronavirus has infected more than 57 million people worldwide and killed almost 1.4 million, according to Johns Hopkins University’s database. The actual figures could be dramatically higher due to insufficient testing capabilities or underreporting.

Editing by John J. Catherine