Iraq plans to gradually ease curbs

Baghdad, May 28 (IANS) The Iraqi parliamentary health committee has proposed the gradual easing of the Covid-19 restrictions and lifting the current partial curfew in stages.Jawad al-Musawi, a member of the parliamentary health committee, told the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) on Thursday that “the committee proposed to the Higher Committee for Health and National Safety to follow up the daily number of cases within 10 days before deciding to lift the partial curfew in two stages according to the epidemiological situation”.Under the recommendation, the first stage is to reduce the hours of the partial curfew, Xinhua news agency reported.The second stage will witness the full lifting of the curfew if the daily Covid infections drop to between 1,000 and 2,000 within 10 days.The Ministry of Health reported 4,611 new cases on Thursday, raising the nationwide caseload to 1,186,309.The Ministry also confirmed 22 new fatalities, bringing the death toll from the virus to 16,289, while the total recoveries climbed by 4,059 to 1,098,199.It also said 22,972 people were vaccinated against the disease during the past 24 hours across the country, bringing the total number of doses administered in Iraq to 573,659.–IANSksk/