Kazakhstan Has Entered COVID-19 Red Zone

Kazakhstan reports more new cases of COVID-19 and announced it has entered the «red zone.»

According to data on the epidemiological situation in the country published by the National Center of Public Health, the cities of Nur-Sultan and Almaty, as well as Akmola, Atyrau, West Kazakhstan, Kostanay, Pavlodar, and North Kazakhstan regions have entered the red zone.

Karaganda and Almaty regions are in the yellow zone, and the other regions are in the green zone.

However, as data has shown, the country as a whole is already in the red zone.

To distinguish different situations with COVID-19 cases, Kazakhstan health authorities use three types of zones: red zone – more than 50 cases per 100,000 people with R (the average number of people that one infected person passes on the virus to) more than one; yellow zone – from 25 to 50 cases per 100,000 people, R is less than one; and green zone – the number of cases is less than 50 per 100,000 people, R is less than one.

The first case of coronavirus was reported in Kazakhstan on March 13. The state of emergency was set into action three days later. On March 19 Nur-Sultan, the capital of the country, and Almaty were put on lockdown. The extension of the state of emergency was declared twice on April 14 and April 27.

On May 11 President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev announced the end of the emergency regime. However, on July 5, new restriction measures were imposed because of the high rate of the disease spread. In general, the quarantine measures were in place until August 17. After that, the restrictions were gradually softened.