For second time in a week, Kurdistan Region tops daily record for new COVID-19 cases

“I urge my sisters and brothers to stick to the health measures and protect themselves against the virus.”

Halgurd Sherwani 2021/07/25 17:30

Security forces in the Kurdistan Region's Erbil province enforce COVID-19 lockdown, March 2020. (Photo: Safin Hamed / AFP)

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) on Sunday urged the public to abide by preventive measures against the COVID-19 pandemic as the region topped the daily record for new cases for the second time in a week.

The regional health ministry said that its health workers had recorded 2,178 cases in the past 24 hours along with 14 deaths due to the highly contagious disease.

This is the highest single-day increase in infections and comes just six days after the region broke its previous record with nearly 2,000 new cases.

In a televised speech earlier in the day, Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani said that the recent surge in infections is primarily driven by the public lack of adherence to health measures. He also urged residents to get vaccinated against the disease.

“I urge my sisters and brothers to stick to the health measures and protect themselves against the virus,” premier Barzani said.

The Kurdish premier also called on the region’s health ministry to “quickly” provide the public with enough COVID-19 vaccines.

On Saturday, the KRG announced that schoolteachers can receive available COVID-19 at vaccination centers across the autonomous region after they fill out an application form.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began in late 2019, the Kurdistan Region has recorded over 211,000 cases of coronavirus, 4,600 of which have been fatal.