NUR-SULTAN – Kazakhstan may reach a coronavirus peak in the end of March, said Kazakh Healthcare Minister Alexey Tsoy at a Jan. 19 government meeting.
Alexey Tsoy. Photo credit: primeminister.kz
The ministry’s working group has been dealing with forecasting different scenarios of how an epidemiological situation may unfold. It has prepared the projections through the end of 2021 given the current restrictions that are in place, including a mandatory mask regime, social distancing and the mass vaccination expected to start in February.
“Based on the optimistic scenario, up to 3,000 cases are expected daily, while the maximum capacity of hospital beds could reach 24,000. Stringent quarantine measures are not envisioned in this case,” said Tsoy addressing the government.
In realistic and pessimistic scenarios that may include strict quarantine, the officials expect daily coronavirus cases to range between 6,000 to 9,000. The number of occupied hospital beds may reach up to 45,000, but will not exceed the 52,000 designed for coronavirus patients.
The surge in coronavirus cases, however, continues in January, a result of a holiday season and non compliance with preventive measures, according to Tsoy.
The world is witnessing a spike in coronavirus infection with no sign of decline.
Kazakhstan, he noted, is currently in a moderate risk yellow zone, along with Turkey.
The red zone includes countries such as Belarus, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, the United Arab Emirates and Ukraine. South Korea and Singapore are in the green zone.
Over the past day, Kazakhstan registered 999 coronavirus cases.
There have been 170,098 coronavirus cases in Kazakhstan since the pandemic began and 46,866 cases of coronavirus pneumonia that shows coronavirus symptoms, but were not clinically confirmed as COVID-19. Kazakhstan also had 2,423 coronavirus related deaths and 542 from coronavirus pneumonia.
Speaking at a government meeting, Kazakh Minister of Internal Affairs Yerlan Turgumbayev said the ministry supports sanitary doctors at airports to prevent the spread of the infection. 18 check points are located in the country’s airports and 16 in railway stations.
He said that the daily number of passengers arriving in airports stands at 31,000 and 17,000 passengers travel by train. The majority of passengers arrive in the Kazakh capital of Nur-Sultan and Kazakhstan’s largest city Almaty.
“3,200 citizens, who failed to present COVID-19 PCR test results, have been placed in quarantine since Jan. 1. Nearly 150 people are sent to quarantine daily,” said Turgumbayev.
