The Iraqi Health Ministry warned Friday of a possible new spike in COVID-19 cases in the country, calling on the public to follow health measures and receive vaccines, the state-run Iraqi News Agency (INA) reported. “The problem of the coronavirus pandemic is still present. … There is a possibility that new variants will appear,” ministry spokesman Sayf al-Badr told the INA. “We are closely monitoring all developments in coordination with the World Health Organization, and there may be a pandemic wave as is happening in countries close to Iraq,” al-Badr said.
The seven-day rolling average of daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people in Iraq currently stands at 7.67. The world average is 65.59, almost nine times the Iraqi statistic. The country’s seven-day rolling average of daily new deaths from COVID-19 per million people is 0.02; the figure for the world is 0.17 – eight and a half times as high.
But Iraq’s current R-value, measuring the average number of new infections caused by a single infected individual, is a worrying 1.79 – 66% higher than the worldwide R-value of 1.08.
As of June 14, only 18.37% of Iraqis were considered to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19.