After today’s meeting of the Commandant’s Office, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan held a news briefing with Deputy Healthcare Minister Lena Nanushyan and St. Gregory the Illuminator Medical Center Deputy Director Petros Manukyan.

The Premier said the coronavirus spread rate once again showed weak signs of stabilization, and while it would be hard to state for sure that the situation has stabilized, we can witness that we have the first such signs in the air.

“Stabilization is taking place at a very high rate: we had 428 new cases yesterday, but I wish to emphasize that our efforts have resulted in such a high rate of stabilization. In fact, we have curbed the problem of people in need of hospitalization. If this trend is maintained, we will solve the problem of hospitalization in full and move on to the stage of overcoming the epidemic, or rather, the stage of zeroing it,” the Prime Minister said.

According to Nikol Pashinyan, it is obvious that today most of the citizens are wearing masks and follow the prescribed rules, but unfortunately we have not had the desired result so far. “Today as of 15:00, the police had fined 1,800 citizens for not wearing masks. I am sorry to cite this figure, since our goal is not to fine people. Yesterday we had an unprecedented rate of recoveries - 775 patients. In fact, we recorded a certain setback in active cases,” the Prime Minister said.

Deputy Healthcare Minister Lena Nanushyan noted that the coronavirus infection is a new disease and there are still many uncertainties regarding its spread, prevention and treatment. “During these months, the Ministry of Healthcare not only organized preventive and curative work, but also tried to learn more about this disease. We have learned from medical staff, our international partners, and experts how to manage the epidemic. We have covered a pretty long way and still have a long way to go. Based on the lessons learned, we are trying to develop specific tactics in order to make counteraction more effective,” she said.

St. Gregory the Illuminator MC Deputy Director Petros Manukyan noted that the coronavirus disease has an unpredictable course with uncontrollable complications. “Patients often have many concomitant diseases that aggravate the course of treatment. In recent days, we could witness an upward tendency in the number of patients in serious and critical condition as hospitals continued to work under pressure. Imagine that a patient is admitted to a hospital with symptoms that are not typical of a serious condition, but after a short period of time, clinical symptoms such as suffocation, anxiety, shortness of breath and overstrain can cause the course of infection to become uncontrollable. Patients literally start to choke. Breathing devices are needed here. The disease regretfully has an unpredictable course, uncontrollable complications and surprises,” he said, noting that St Gregory the Illuminator Medical Center treats only those patients in serious and critical condition. “We are in war, as a matter of fact, and our medical workers are fighting day and night to save lives,” Mr. Manukyan said and urged citizens to observe the rules set by the Commandant’s Office.