COVID-19: Kurdistan Region records over 1,000 new cases in 24 hours
Health authorities in the Kurdistan Region registered over 1,000 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, amid an alarming surge of the virus in the autonomous region.
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Health authorities in the Kurdistan Region registered over 1,000 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, amid an alarming surge of the virus in the autonomous region.
According to the regional health ministry’s daily statement, health workers conducted 6,375 tests during the past 24 hours, raising the total number of such tests to 640,709, since the outbreak of the virus began in the Kurdistan Region in early March.
Of the tests conducted in the past 24 hours, the region recorded 1,002 infections. The total number of infections has now reached 75,336 cases.
The figures came shortly after the region, on Tuesday, announced the highest number of daily infections.
Read More: COVID-19: Kurdistan Region records highest daily infections since start of pandemic
The ministry also recorded 25 deaths over the past 24 hours, raising the total death count to 2,431 fatalities.
Health officials say that over 42,000 people have recovered from the highly contagious disease, but it is important to note that “recovery” 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 symptoms, such as significant lung damage, could be permanent.
To confront the rising number of infections, the Kurdistan Region is imposing stronger measures.
Local authorities in Erbil province announced on Monday a mandatory mask requirement. Anyone who does not wear a mask will be fined. The fine is IQD 20,000 ($14) and is to be enforced by local police officers.
The rise in coronavirus cases in the Kurdistan Region and its capital are part of a broader trend. In neighboring Iran, the original epicenter of the disease in the region, the number of cases topped 600,000 on Friday.
Iran has registered the largest number of coronavirus cases in the Middle East. On Wednesday, the speaker of the Iranian parliament announced that he, too, had contracted the virus.
Editing by Laurie Mylroie
