CHISINAU, November 23. /TASS/. City authorities in Chisinau have equipped additional hospital beds for the coronavirus patients on the premises of the MoldExpo exhibition hall since city hospitals cannot cope anymore with the daily increase in the infections, head of Chisinau’s healthcare directorate Boris Gilca reported at a meeting of municipal services aired by the city hall press service on its Facebook page.
"The epidemiologic situation in Chisinau is extremely hard. <…> We’ve reached the highest number of patients, 1,042 hospital beds are occupied. Some 5 to 10 slots become available daily but this is insufficient, so we had to prepare another 200 slots at a temporary distribution center at MoldExpo," he said.
According to him, Chisinau makes up almost half of all the coronavirus infections nationwide (41,000). "We continue to register growth in the number of infections as well as of severe cases and fatalities. The forecasts are not encouraging," he noted. He pointed out that the majority of the coronavirus patients in Moldova are being treated at home under observation of family physicians.
According to Moldova’s Health, Labor and Social Protection Ministry, as of November 22, since the beginning of the pandemic over 97,000 cases of the coronavirus infection have been confirmed in the country (2.6% of the country’s population). The number of fatalities has surpassed 2,000. The republic introduced entry restrictions for foreigners, as well as limitations on mass events; protective masks at public places are mandatory. At the same time, most of the restrictions introduced in Moldova earlier have been lifted: the public transportation, educational institutions, markets, stores, cafes, gyms and beauty parlors are functioning.