Erbil's downtown market lies deserted after a six-day Kurdistan Region-wide lockdown began on June 1, 2020. Photo: Bilind T. Abdullah / Rudaw
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Nineteen new cases of COVID-19 were recorded in the Kurdistan Region on Monday, the first of six days of a new complete lockdown.
Twelve of the new cases were recorded in the Garmiyan administrative area, according to a statement from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) health ministry late Monday. The ministry also confirmed six people had tested positive for the virus in Duhok province, while one more was recorded in Erbil on Monday night.
The KRG’s interior ministry imposed a full six-day lockdown on Monday, following the confirmation of over 100 cases of COVID-19 across the Kurdistan Region - the highest single-day total it has ever recorded. According to the decree, all non-emergency travel is prohibited, exempting only media, medical teams and security forces.
The Kurdistan Region has recorded 729 cases of the virus, with 420 recoveries and seven deaths to date, according to a KRG interactive dashboard. Sulaimani looks likely to continue bearing the brunt of the outbreak, with 229 of the Kurdistan Region’s 302 active cases located in the province.
Hospitals in Sulaimani are in need of more polymerase chain reaction (PCR) devices, with “more people coming to hospitals” and “showing symptoms,” provincial health directorate spokesperson Dr. Yad Naqshbandi told Rudaw on Sunday.
The outbreak has shown such a resurgence in the Kurdistan Region that authorities have had to use “hotels instead of hospitals” to treat patients, KRG health minister Dr. Saman Barzanji said on Sunday.
Iraq as a whole saw its highest ever daily case total recorded on Monday, with 429 people testing positive for the virus according to an Iraqi health ministry statement including Kurdistan Region figures.
Across the country, ten people died after contracting COVID-19, while 119 people recovered. The capital city of Baghdad, the epicenter of the virus in Iraq, recorded 172 of the new cases.
The all-time high in cases came as the government eased measures curtailing free movement and shuttering businesses for weeks, damaging an already frail economy.
Lockdown measures first introduced in March were eased on May 10, though a nighttime curfew remained in place. Shorter-term, localised lockdowns were implemented after a surge of cases in some Baghdad neighbourhoods last month.
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