Nine new patients with coronavirus, no emergency declared

“I went out for a walk around the city, not crowded, but there is no panic. People walk on their own or with dogs, drink coffee and pastries in cafes, someone does shopping. Some stores at the entrance offer to sanitize your hands with alcohol. Masks put on 50/50. In general, everything is calm. Of course, the festive atmosphere is not felt, but you can safely breathe in the fresh air and enjoy the good weather. Everything will be fine, life is beautiful!” Anastasia Lavrina, the host of the political program on CBC, writes on the social network.

My family and did shopping at the supermarket "Araz" in Novkhany. As always, there are many goods, few buyers. There are no bulk purchases of food and toilet paper; at the entrance an employee sprayed detergent into my hands, droppers with the same liquid are hung in the store. The masks were a minority of visitors, all sellers in casually dressed masks and rubber gloves.

Yesterday, the Ministry of Health of Azerbaijan reported the absence of new cases of identification of patients with coronavirus. It was hoped that after the recent identification of ten patients who arrived from Europe, there would be no new cases, which would mean a recession in the epidemic in Azerbaijan. However, today the Ministry of Health reported about nine new patients, which means that 42 infected people are in closed hospitals in the country.

"There is no pandemic situation in Azerbaijan in connection with the coronavirus that has worried the whole world," said Irada Huseynova (Report), vice president of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan (ANAS).

Maybe she hurried. In any case, in comparison with others, the situation in our country is not the worst. An emergency regime has been introduced in Georgia.  On March 21, infection with coronavirus (COVID-19) in Georgia has already been confirmed in 47 citizens; 1966 citizens are in 14-day compulsory quarantine, and 259 are under the supervision of doctors in medical institutions.

In Armenia, 160 patients with coronavirus per 3 million people.

According to the latest data, 253 people are infected with coronavirus in Russia.

The total number of patients with the new COVID-19 coronavirus, according to data on Saturday morning, amounted to over 275 thousand people in 175 countries of the world, more than 11 400 people died from the pandemic. Over the past 24 hours, the first cases of coronavirus appeared in six more countries of the world, such cases, in particular, are reported from Singapore and Zimbabwe.

Azerbaijan has tightened the Criminal Code in the fight against coronavirus. According to the amendment made to Article 211 of the Code, individuals can be fined AZN 100-200 for violation of the regime, AZN 1,500-2,000 for officials, taking into account the person who committed the administrative offense, an administrative arrest of up to one month can be applied, legal entities - from 2,000 to 5,000 manat.

The vast majority of the infected came from Europe and Asia. That is, theoretically, when all "foreigners" return to Azerbaijan, if everyone is necessarily quarantined, then the virus will not enter the country. Those who are in quarantine will recover or be healthy, there will be no new “imports”, which means that in April the curve will go down, and by May there will be a zero coronavirus rate. The forecast is realistic, but the state should further tighten the regime, introduce a ban on leaving the house without special need - as in Europe now. The serene walking atmosphere that A. Lavrina saw in Baku, I think, is unacceptable.

It is important to allocate resources correctly. President I. Aliyev allocated 1 billion manat ($ 600 million) to fight against coronavirus and the costs associated with the pandemic. How the money will be spent is still unclear, this will be decided by the government.

Independent economist Gubad Ibadoglu made a package of proposals: to compensate citizens for the loss of wages due to a pandemic, to stop paying bank debts, to increase social payments, to free import of medicines and food products from taxes and VAT, so that prices do not rise, etc. - a package known for measures in France and other European countries. Azerbaijan has its own peculiarity - they steal, therefore, we expect that the sick country will not receive the whole billion, and the remaining sum could be spent inefficiently. Consequently, it is not enough in specific Azerbaijani conditions to allocate a billion state money, it is also necessary to create objective independent, public control over the money spending, so that it does not work like with budget allocations to eliminate the consequences of floods and landslides in Azerbaijan.