Hospitals filling up as UK coronavirus strain spreads in Kurdistan Region

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Hospitals are filling up as the number of the UK strain coronavirus cases increases, the Kurdistan Region’s Minister of Health warned on Wednesday. 

“More beds are being filled in the hospitals, and this means that the virus is spreading further in the community,” read the statement from Saman Barzanji. “The highest rate of the new strain has been recorded which is 7.8 percent, and we expect more in the coming days.”

This comes nearly a month after Sulaimani’s health director said a state of emergency would not be announced until hospitals are at full capacity. 

“We will only announce a state of emergency when our hospitals run out of beds, as long as that does not happen, the situation is normal and we will keep on treating patients.”

Hawrami also claimed that the people of Sulaimani have developed herd immunity, adding, “I don’t think [a] lockdown will be announced again in Sulaimani.”

The first five suspected cases of a new coronavirus variant, first detected in the United Kingdom, were reported in the Kurdistan Region mid-February.

The Kurdistan Region received 5,000 doses of the Sinopharm coronavirus vaccine as a gift from China on March 2. Health workers on the frontline of the fight against the virus were prioritized to receive the jab. Goran Othman, a health worker at the intensive care unit in Erbil’s West Emergency Hospital, was the first to receive the vaccine.

Aso Hawezy, spokesperson for the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) health ministry, told Rudaw on March 3 that 1,000 of the 5,000 donated doses will be given to Chinese workers in the Kurdistan Region.

After a Kurdistan Region coronavirus crisis cell meeting on March 10, the education ministry announced that schools will be closed from March 13 to March 25, a spring break longer than usual.

The health ministry said on Tuesday it had recorded 353 new cases, 201 recoveries and six deaths in 24 hours, with 113,457 cases, including 105,884 recoveries and 3,574 deaths recorded since the start of the pandemic.