The number of officially confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in Tajikistan is nearing 7,000.
43 new officially confirmed cases of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) were reported in Tajikistan yesterday, bringing a total number of the officially confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country to 6,921 as of the night of July 20, according to the Ministry of Health and Social Protection of the Population (MoHSPP).
MoHSPP says 5,621 COVID-19 patients have recovered as of the night of July 20, 2020. 41 coronavirus survivors were reportedly discharged from hospitals yesterday.
According to a MoHSPP, an official number of the coronavirus-linked deaths in the country is 57.
160 people hospitalized on suspicion of contracting COVID-19 are under supervision of doctors, the ministry says
The COVID-19 pandemic in Tajikistan is part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The virus was confirmed to have spread to Tajikistan when its index cases, in Dushanbe and Khujand, were confirmed on April 30, 2020.
Meanwhile, Eurasianet says health systems in Central Asia, most notably those of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, are creaking under the increasingly unmanageable weight of hospitalizations for pneumonia.
Although it is widely assumed that this surge of cases is attributable to the wildfire spread of the coronavirus, authorities reportedly appear reluctant to fully concede the link.
Front-line medical practitioners overwhelmed by patient numbers are less preoccupied by the distinction than the lack of resources and manpower.
Citizens, activists and journalists are alarmed, however, that governments are trying to muddy the picture in order to salvage their reputations. This apparent obfuscation has led in one instance to a distracting diplomatic row.
At a government meeting on July 10, Kazakhstan’s Health Minister, Alexei Tsoi, stated that around 98,500 pneumonia cases had been recorded since the start of the year. Out of that total, 1,772 cases had led to the patient’s death. More than one-third of the fatalities – 628 – occurred in June, Tsoi said.
The minister had said earlier that the incidence of pneumonia was 50 percent higher this year than in 2019.
The authorities have pledged to work on making their data more useful, but doctors are growing angry at what they see as little more than a face-saving, statistical fudge, according to Eurasianet.
The level of uncertainty around the pneumonia case surge was such in Kazakhstan that the Chinese Embassy reportedly took the unusually undiplomatic step of warning of the spread of a deadly “unknown pneumonia” in Kazakhstan.
According to Kyrgyzstan’s Health Ministry, 277 people died with pneumonia from January to June, compared with 318 people over the same period last year. But things have reportedly become much worse since. In the first half of July alone, at least 335 people are said to have died with pneumonia.
