COVID-19: Kurdistan Region sets record of new cases for third day in a row

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The numbers of new coronavirus cases in the Kurdistan Region are increasing on a daily basis this week, with a new record set at more than 3,500 infections over the past 24 hours.

In a press conference on Monday in Duhok province, which composes half of the 3,559 new infections the Kurdish health authorities had detected, Health Minister Saman Barzinji announced.

Earlier in the day, he described the current COVID-19 status in the region as “very bad”, urging the public to follow the health measures such as masking and social distancing to receive vaccines to stem further spreading of the deadly virus.

Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani on Sunday called on citizens to wear face masks and get vaccinated to flatten the rising infections curve.

The recent surge came after the Region had identified the first cases of the highly transmittable variant of COVID-19, known Delta and first detected in India.

One of the measures that Kurdistan Region health authorities had taken to fight the infections was to dedicate additional treatment centers to treating critical COVID-19 patients, whose numbers are rising quickly.

“The number of patients that need be admitted at hospitals is high,” Barzinji told Kurdistan 24.

Infection figures are equally high across the autonomous region, but Duhok province conducts the highest number of testing per day.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began there in early 2020, the Kurdistan Region has recorded over 217,000 cases of coronavirus, more than 4,700 of which have been fatal.

Editing by John J. Catherine