Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan asked Minister of Health Arsen Torosyan about the coronavirus situation prior to the session of government. “We have 50 new confirmed cases of the virus, which made the total 1,523. At the moment, 840 people are actively receiving treatment. 659 people have recovered and 24 people have died,” Torosyan said.
Speaking about the overall situation, the minister said that 10 people are currently in severely critical condition and 230 people have pneumonia. Five people are using ventilators, one of whom is only 27 years old. However, this individual has several severe chronic illnesses. “The doctors are doing everything they can to keep this person in a stable condition. There seems to be hope that they will be able to save this person’s life. As for the others, I can say that the trend seems to be the same if we are to compare the number of new cases divided by the number of overall cases. We have not yet experienced an overwhelming burden on hospital beds for us to consider discussing using an alternative route- having people with mild cases stay at home. So, we still are able to hospitalize everyone and keep those with the mildest cases isolated in hotels. However, taking into consideration the fact that several types of businesses were given permission to operate, we need to continue staying careful and all activities need to continue.”
Pashinyan asked Torosyan about what the situation is like worldwide. The minister reported that the situation differs per country. However, the situation in Iran is interesting; the number of new cases every day is less than the number of new cases the day before, and the same for deaths. Also, the Iranian government is seeking to ease some of the economic restrictions. “However, there is a large debate about whether or not there will be a second wave of the virus, which we need to beware of. Europe is also looking towards easing some of the restrictions, but it is not convinced that this will not cause new cases. There is a lot of uncertainty about what needs to be done, so decisions are being made on a daily basis.”
The Deputy Prime Minister, Tigran Avinyan, added that the decision on easing economic restrictions was updated last night, and a number of economic sectors are now allowed to operate. “As we promised, we are opening everything back up phase by phase, but at the same time, the location systems are working more effectively in this phase. This system has been entirely transferred to the governing center of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, where virologists, MES employees, and developers are working together on our system. We are able to control the spread of the virus in this phase and, if this continues, we will continue to allow different businesses to open.”
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Nelly Babayan
