COVID-19: Iraq announces 78 deaths and nearly 4,000 new infections
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Iraqi Ministry of Health and Environment announced on Wednesday 3,946 new coronavirus cases and 78 fatalities during the past 24 hours.
According to health officials, Iraq has so far confirmed 242,284 total cases of COVID-19 in Iraq. Of those, 7,201 have died, 50,878 are still receiving treatment at hospitals or clinics, and 184,205 are labelled as having recovered.
It should be noted that a coronavirus “recovery” does not necessarily mean that the former infected persons have fully healed. Studies suggest that even after the virus has left one’s body, a recovered person can still suffer lingering symptoms that can seriously affect their health, even in individuals that had a “mild” version of the disease.
To date, Iraqi health officials have reported conducting over 1.5 million tests for the virus.
Today's figures do not include the most recent developments in the autonomous Kurdistan Region, which has its own health ministry and typically announces results later in the day. As such, Kurdistan's figures are usually added to the following day's national tally.
As the country has relaxed lockdown measures and ramped up testing, both transmission and detection of the virus has increased. Authorities have often stated that the lack of adherence to health guidelines has been a primary driver of infections.
On Tuesday, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Ghebreyesus called on governments of the world to continue isolation restrictions imposed to stop outbreaks, adding that lifting such rules without controlling the virus would have serious consequences.
“We want to see children go back to school and people return to the workplace, but we want to see this done safely,” he said, adding, “No country can pretend that the epidemic is over. The truth is that this virus spreads easily. Lifting restrictions without control is a recipe for disaster.”
In efforts to curb further spread of the coronavirus, distance learning will be applied across the autonomous Kurdistan Region’s educational institutions, except for students in the 12th grade for the first half of the academic year, the regional cabinet announced on Wednesday.
Read More: Kurdistan Region applies distance learning for the first half of the new academic year
The highly-contagious disease has infected over 25.8 million people worldwide and killed more than 859,000 according to government-reported data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The actual figures could be dramatically higher due to insufficient testing capabilities or underreporting.
Editing by John J. Catherine