Kazakhstan Closes COVID Hospitals It No Longer Needs

Over the last three days, the Department of Public Health in Nur-Sultan closed three infectious hospitals with 370 beds in total. All of them were temporarily used for COVID treatment after the sharp surge in COVID cases this summer, according to local health system head Aliya Rustamova. 

Early September is singled out for the better epidemiological situation in the capital compared to the summer months. For example, the number of COVID patients per day decreased from 320 at the beginning of August to 120 at the beginning of September. The number of patients who are treated in the city’s hospitals decreased from 2,900 in August to 1,400 in September. Moreover, the number of serious COVID-19 patients has also decreased from 230 to 153 over the period.

«Due to the decreasing number of reported cases, our department has decided to close all in-patient hospitals we opened during the summer months surge. Over the last three days we closed three such hospitals with 370 beds in total,» she said.

All three hospitals were based at the city’s center for mental health, military hospital, and hospital of the National Security Committee.

«The next step is to close the other three treatment sites at hospitals #3 and #366, and at the National Scientific Center for Traumatology and Orthopedics,» she added.

Nur-Sultan has been in the red zone since March 2021. Currently, there are 1,484 COVID patients with a utilized capacity of hospitals of 41%. Another large Kazakhstani city of Almaty has also reported a plunging number of coronavirus cases and is softening the regime of quarantine.