ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) interior ministry has announced a complete six-day lockdown to begin at 6 pm on Monday, June 1, after the Region recorded its highest ever single-day number of COVID-19 cases.
According to the KRG interior ministry decree published in the early hours of Monday, all non-emergency travel will be prohibited, exempting only medical teams and security forces.
Government offices and businesses will be closed; only pharmacies will be permitted to stay open. Bakeries will be allowed to operate from 6 am to 1 pm daily.
The strict measures were announced after 101 people in Sulaimani and Halabja provinces tested positive for the novel coronavirus on Sunday, according to a KRG health ministry statement.
The 101 new cases “include men, women, boys and girls of all ages,” the ministry said in its statement.
Of those infected, 51 are from the city of Penjwen, 42 from the city of Sulaimani, and three are from Warmawa. The towns of Kalar, Kifri, Khanaqin, and Halabja all recorded one case each; the last case was a recent returnee from Baghdad. Duhok province recorded two new cases on Sunday, the ministry said, bringing the Kurdistan Region’s one-day total to 103.
Sunday’s health ministry announcement brought the total number of COVID-19 cases in the Kurdistan Region to 710. Of those who have contracted the virus, 420 have recovered and seven have died. There are currently 283 active cases across the Kurdistan Region, according to an interactive dashboard from the KRG.
Six of the seven deaths recorded so far are from Sulaimani province. No fatalities had been recorded in the Kurdistan Region for a month, until two deaths occurred in just two days – that of a 37-year-old man on Saturday, and a 70-year-old man on Sunday.
The government began implementing measures to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus in late February, resorting to partial and complete lockdowns in March.
Lockdown measures were gradually lifted as rates of infection slowed, allowing shops, mosques and churches to reopen their doors and non-essential traffic to run through the Region's roads – though authorities called on the public to continue adhering to their end of pandemic-induced regulations.
But with cases of the virus growing since the beginning of May, the KRG imposed a full, 72-hour lockdown across the Kurdistan Region on the three days of Eid al-Fitr last week. The government renewed a ban on travel between provinces in the Kurdistan Region until mid-June, according to an order issued on Wednesday.
Amid the outbreak's surge, Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Region Masrour Barzani issued a strongly worded statement on Friday morning to warn that the public's decreasing commitment to the government's health instructions has led to the disease "swiftly spreading."
Cases have seen such a resurgence that authorities have had to use “hotels instead of hospitals” to treat patients, KRG health minister Saman Barzanji said on Sunday.
Sulaimani, home to the highest number of active COVID-19 cases in the Kurdistan Region, also appears to be bearing the brunt of severe virus-induced illness. At least 30 patients in the province are showing “serious symptoms,” health directorate spokesperson Dr. Yad Naqshbandi said on Sunday.
Sulaimani hospitals are in need of more polymerase chain reaction (PCR) devices, with “more people coming to hospitals” and “showing symptoms,” Naqshbandi told Rudaw earlier on Sunday.
Sunday’s record-high case tally may well be topped, with health authorities awaiting test results for Erbil province, Barzanji told Rudaw on Sunday night.
"This [new cases] tells us that this virus is serious ... This is the danger that we have feared [in the past]. Definitely bigger numbers [of new] cases will follow because they have been in contact with other people. A number of these people have shown symptoms," he said.
Barzanji attributed the jump in cases to interpersonal contact, failure to wear face masks, and travel from the rest of Iraq to the Kurdistan Region.
Updated 1:47 am on Monday, June 1
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