COVID-19 Update (July 14-15)

Anna Hakobyan, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s wife and Chairwoman of the Board of Trustees of My Step and City of Smile Charitable foundations, had a meeting with the Ambassador of Lithuania in Armenia Inga Stanytė-Toločkienė. The Ambassador conveyed the greetings of Lithuania’s First Lady Diana Nausėdienė and handed over her presents for children who had been infected with COVID-19.

The presents included hand-made Lithuanian toys, made by people with disabilities, and chocolate. The Ambassador emphasized that the gifts symbolize the friendship between the two first ladies and are a sign of solidarity with Armenians. Anna Hakobyan expressed gratitude for the assistance and for the group of medics that was sent to Armenia to assist the country’s efforts against the pandemic. She also thanked the First Lady Diana Nausėdienė for her warmth and gifts for children. During the meeting, Hakobyan also spoke about the recent tensions on the Armenian-Azerbaijani state border and noted that it is important for countries to follow the calls for a global ceasefire at a time of a pandemic.

Anahit Avanesyan, the First Deputy Minister of Health had an online discussion with her Iranian counterpart Asadi-Lari and a group of medical professionals from both countries.

The sides provided updates about the coronavirus situation in both countries, shared some of their experience and knowledge about treatment methods of COVID-19 patients, oversight of the epidemiological situation, and activities carried out with the population. The Deputy Minister agreed to continue the cooperation in the fight against the pandemic and consultations between the health ministries and medical professionals. During the meeting, the possibilities for expanding cooperation with Pasteur Institute of Iran (one of the oldest leading research and public health centers in Iran and the Middle East) was also discussed.

Today, the National Assembly, in a first reading, adopted a bill which proposes to introduce a new voting procedure for MPs who are temporarily unable to work because of health issues. Vahagn Hovakimyan, an MP from the My Step faction said that the bill was necessary because several Members have been diagnosed with COVID-19. The bill proposes a written voting procedure which is currently practiced only when MPs are sent on official parliamentary business abroad. The bill was proposed by MPs Vladimir Vardanyan, Anna Karapetyan, Hayk Gevorgyan and Vladimir Hovakimyan of the My Step faction.

The Ministry of Health reported 339 new cases of COVID-19 and 864 recoveries, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 32,490 of which 10,996 are active cases and 20,729 have already recovered. Eight COVID-19 patients (the youngest aged 50 and the oldest 88), who all, except for one, had pre-existing health conditions, died bringing the total number of deaths to 581. One patient with COVID-19 also died, but the virus was not the cause of death; 184 such cases have been reported. To date, 136,802 tests have been conducted, of which 1,115 were in the last 24 hours.