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"All the steps we have taken are preventive in nature. The commissioning of this hospital and another nine similar hospitals is scheduled to take place in the next one to two months. All these steps have been anticipatory, which is why I think we have managed to win the first stage of the fight against coronavirus. But the fight continues, the coronavirus has not disappeared anywhere, it wanders and will continue to wander, so everyone should know this," President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said at the opening of the first modular hospital complex in Baku, on May 07, 2020, APA reports.

"Great success has been achieved in the field of testing today. Azerbaijan is in one of the leading places on a global scale for the number of tests per capita. To do the testing, new laboratories have been acquired. Their number has now reached 23 and the creation of new laboratories is on the agenda.

All necessary medical equipment is being purchased. As you know, 100 million manats were allocated from the President’s Contingency Fund for the acquisition of medical equipment, supplies and proper organization of work. This is the first tranche and an additional 150 million manats is already in a state of readiness. If necessary, we will use that as well. Of course, all these comprehensive measures – testing, the operation of hospitals, laboratories, the professionalism of doctors and the proper organization of work - have allowed us, as we wanted, the opportunity to come out of this situation with small losses. The death of each person is a great tragedy for their loved ones, relatives. The life of each person is very valuable to us. But cognition comes through comparison, and when we see that hundreds of people, sometimes even more than a thousand people die in developed countries, then, of course, we see that the work done in this area in Azerbaijan is of particular importance, and everyone sees that. Even in countries with similar population figures as ours, hundreds of people have been dying every day for a long time. The healthcare of these countries has always been cited as an example throughout the world, including for us. However, during this period, everyone saw that the situation there had reached a critical point. Therefore, of course, if we compare the work done by the Azerbaijani state, it has a significant advantage. We are paying special attention to keeping the situation under control, and at the first stage we succeeded in doing that. Therefore, the adoption of comprehensive measures, including the gradual introduction of a quarantine regime in accordance with the situation, its tightening and recent relaxation are all balanced steps.

Why has the quarantine regime tightened? In order to prevent the spread of the infection, and we did achieve that. At the initial stage, this virus, if I may say so, was imported to Azerbaijan, but then cases of internal infection began to occur. Operational measures were taken immediately and it was thanks to the strict quarantine rules that we completed this stage with minimum losses. On seeing that the number of people those recovering significantly exceeds the number of those infected every day for three weeks, we began to take mitigating measures. Unfortunately, some people perceived this as the removal of the quarantine regime. Unfortunately, some people do not comply with the quarantine regime. Mitigation measures pursued only one goal: to restore the customary way of life to some extent. The mitigation of the quarantine regime does not mean the end of the quarantine regime. No. The quarantine regime will be in place until at least 31 May, after which it may be extended if necessary. Therefore, frankly speaking, the picture of recent days frustrates and worries me because in the last two to three days the number of infected people exceeds the number of those recovering, and if this trends increases sharply – I want to say this openly for everyone to know – we will have to bring the quarantine regime to its previous state, tighten it and take stricter punitive measures in relation to those violating order, so that we can constantly keep the situation under control," said the head of state.

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