Iraqi authorities likely to extend total lockdown until next July

Shafaq News / The Iraqi Ministry of Health and Environment revealed on Saturday that it is likely to extend the total lockdown throughout the country until next July if the number of Coronavirus (Covid-19) cases continues to uptick, while noting that the partial curfew will start from tomorrow.

“The high corona virus cases may lead us to announce the total lockdown in the country due to the large and confusing numbers that we have reached within the daily epidemiological situation, in addition to the large effective field surveys that our health teams had conducted in the past two weeks,”the Director General of Public Health Department the Ministry, Dr. Riyad Al-Halfi said in a statement to government media, seen by Shafaq News Agency.

Al-Halfi noted that the partial curfew will be adopted tomorrow in accordance with the decision of the Supreme Committee for Health and National Safety to curb the pandemic, to give the opportunity to facilitate the movement of citizens and people with daily income jobs during the day.

He added that the total lockdown was aimed to break the chain of the virus’ spread to reduce transmission between citizens very quickly, and allowing more health teams to identify the most affected areas by the virus in order to develop a new plan after the end of the complete curfew week, and return to the application of the partial curfew as well as regional on the cities with the highest confirmed cases. 

Yet the Iraqi Ministry of Health and Environment announced on Friday, 39 death cases, and registering 1,095 new cases of the novel Corona virus within 24 hours in all regions of Iraq.

The death rate in the declared epidemic situation yesterday was the highest since the pandemic outbreak in the country.