COVID-19 infection rate in Kazakhstan is on the decline. Kazakh Health Minister Alexey Tsoy announced that the country’s epidemiological situation is stabilizing. In the last two weeks alone, the number of people infected with a dangerous virus decreased by 20 percent compared to the previous two weeks, he stated.
“According to the daily monitoring of the bed occupancy rate in the regions, as of May 18, the country’s infectious diseases beds are occupied by 36 percent, while the ICU beds by 28 percent. The high occupancy rate of hospital beds is observed in Nur-Sultan - 49 percent and Almaty region - 45 percent, ICU beds occupancy in Nur-Sultan is 52 percent and in Almaty city - 47 percent,” Tsoy said.
Additional arrivals of the QazVac and Hayat-Vax vaccines are expected by the end of the month. To date, 2.6 million doses of the vaccine have already been used. The first jabs were administered to about 1.9 million citizens, and the second doses were given to about 800,000 people. Kazakh Prime Minister Askar Mamin instructed to continue the work on increasing vaccination coverage of the population.
“I instruct mayors and governors to keep this issue under special control. Those who wish to get the jab, should have the right to choose a vaccine and receive the relevant information. The Health Ministry must clearly define the intervals between the two doses, and respond to citizens’ requests and wishes,” the prime minister said.
Authorities also highlighted the particular effectiveness of the national Ashyq application. Since its launch, it has identified over 3,000 visitors with ‘red’ and ‘yellow’ statuses. Of these, over 1,800 patients were with positive COVID-19 PCR test results. Currently, about 6,000 facilities in all areas of activity are using the Ashyq app, which has 1.4 million registered users.
Translation by Assem Zhanmukhanova
Editing by Galiya Khassenkhanova
