COVID-19 lockdown measures should stay in place: Erbil Health Director

The curfew measures should stay in place despite no new COVID-19 cases reported in the past 24 hours, Erbil Health Director said on Tuesday.

ERBIL (Kurdistan24) – The curfew measures should stay in place despite no new COVID-19 cases reported in the past 24 hours, Erbil Health Director said on Tuesday.

In the last 24 hours, no new cases of COVID-19 were reported out of 1,792 laboratory tests conducted in the Kurdistan Region’s four provinces, Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Health Minister Dr. Saman Barzinjy previously told Kurdistan 24.

“Over 400 laboratory tests were conducted yesterday in the previously infected neighborhoods [of Erbil], and all resulted negative,” Dr. Dlovan Mohammed, Erbil’s General Health Director, stated on Tuesday.

He also announced that “20 patients recovered who were mostly those that were exposed to the two funerals; some of them were from Sebiran.”

“Yet, the situation requires the strict measures and curfew to stay in place and citizens adhere to them,” Mohammed warned.

“Reporting no new cases in 24 hours does not mean the virus disappeared and the measures should be lifted,” Barzinjy said. He also said the people “should still adhere to the guidelines.”

“We agree that people’s livelihood should be considered, but we do not believe curfew should be lifted completely,” Barzinjy told Kurdistan 24 on Monday.

The statement comes as Sulaimani governorate plans to ease some of the lockdown restrictions after a decline in the number of infections following its spike in early March.

Read MoreSulaimani governorate to ease COVID-19 lockdown restrictions at neighborhood level: Governor

At the same time, the number of people recovering in the region has increased to 167 from the 330 confirmed cases recorded in Sulaimani, Erbil, Duhok, and Halabja provinces, according to the ministry’s statistics. The authorities have also only reported four deaths from the disease.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany