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Coronavirus pandemic

Armenian government set to extend state of emergency over pandemic

As the premier said, the Armenian healthcare system was swamped and 200 patients could not be hospitalized over the absence of hospital beds

Yerevan during the pandemic Vagram Bagdasaryan/TASS

Yerevan during the pandemic

© Vagram Bagdasaryan/TASS

YEREVAN, June 9. /TASS/. The Armenian government intends to extend the state of emergency introduced in the republic to fight the coronavirus pandemic, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said during an online briefing on Tuesday.

"As for extending the state of emergency, there is such a probability. This probability is quite high and I think that we will extend the state of emergency," he said.

Read also

Coronavirus situation in Armenia deteriorating — PM

The Armenian government made a decision on May 14 to extend the state of emergency in the republic until June 13.

The situation with the coronavirus spread remains tense in the republic. Pashinyan announced on June 7 that the real number of infected people in the republic could exceed 100,000.

As the premier said, the Armenian healthcare system was overburdened and 200 patients could not be hospitalized over the absence of hospital beds. Pashinyan said that the scope of the violation of sanitary requirements in the country was disastrous and the law-enforcement agencies could not keep the situation under control.

Pashinyan said on June 8 he had initiated the process of dismissing the heads of the National Security Service and police and also the chief of the General Staff. As the Armenian premier said on many occasions before, the law-enforcement agencies, in particular, the National Security Service and the police, were failing to cope with mass violations of epidemiological safety standards and accused the heads of these agencies of underreporting these breaches to him.

In late December 2019, Chinese officials notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus — named COVID-19 by the WHO — have been reported in every corner of the globe.

On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. According to the latest statistics, over 7,210,900 people have been infected worldwide and more than 408,900 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 3,550,900 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.

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