YEREVAN—Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan expressed on Tuesday renewed optimism that the latest health and safety procedures adopted in Armenia were beginning to positively affect the epidemiological situation—which has until now remained critical.
Referring to the medical system’s care capacity in a Facebook Live address to the nation, the Prime Minister said that “as of [June 21], there are no more backlogs for patients awaiting critical care.” The country had suffered its first non-
Or, subscribe now for unlimited access
By submitting your email address you agree for Hairenik Association, Inc. to send you communication by email.
Already a subscriber?Log in here
This story is FREE for you...
Create a free account to access this and four more articles, and get more sent to you with our e-newsletter.By submitting your email address you agree for Hairenik Association, Inc. to send you communication by email.
Thanks for your reporting! I appreciate your well-written and concise articles, Raffi.
Although a week has passed since your report, I don’t see any flattening yet. It’s hard to believe that the virus is “losing its grip” when the positivity rate hasn’t budged from 30-40% for a month. That’s outrageously high, higher than Qatar and Chile, which top the global list. It’s ten times higher than the US and Russia. Whether they do 1200 or 2000 tests, the results still come back the same: consistently one-third positive COVID infections. Does that mean we should multiply the case count by ten to get a realistic assessment of the situation? Considering that multiple negative tests should be attributed to the same person to prove their recovery, that makes the positive result even more worrisome.
Also, I am surprised the death rate is significantly lower, and I don’t know if that means the strain here is less potent, if the medical staff are doing an outstanding job, if genetics are producing a different outcome, or something else. Honestly, because there is no journalism here from medical experts, I’m not confident that the “deaths in patients who tested positive for COVID but died from other complications” are assessed accurately, or that non-tested fatalities from people who died at home are being factored in. I’m surrounded by older neighbors whose lungs are seriously incapacitated. So much of the population here is at risk, but I have little confidence they’d ever get tested.
I don’t know if you’re drafting it already, but I’d really like to hear some perspective from the foreign doctors who are assisting here.
The curve *is* flat though, and it has been for the last 3 or 4 weeks (with new cases averaging at between 4 and 600/day) – meaning that it hasn’t exponentially grown. I think what you meant to say is that the numbers haven’t dropped yet. I suspect this is because increased testing means they’re catching more of the “asymptomatic” cases, and in the next couple of weeks, as these get factored in, you’ll see a bit of a drop.
As for the really low death rate (comparatively obviously) I think it has almost everything to do with hospital care. Most death waves we saw occur in the US, France, the UK and Italy were the result of hospitals being overwhelmed and not being able to help enough patients at the time. Armenia has done some amazing work expanding its medical response system (remember that the medical system has been severely underfunded for decades) and managed to help.
Also, I suspect that Armenia learned from countries where the death waves hit earlier, so they had some time to prepare.
I’m no expert though
– Doug