An investigation by the data department of 24.kg news agency showed that the summer outbreak of coronavirus could have been prevented — or at least mitigated — if authorities of Kyrgyzstan had followed the advice of scientists.
Negligence of the state led to the loss of at least 1,362 lives in June-July — at the peak of the epidemic.
The authorities have an opportunity to influence the course of the epidemic, avoiding the mistakes of this summer. But if the government does not draw conclusions from past mistakes, then the second wave may turn out to be much more hard than the country has already experienced in June-July 2020.
Mistake 1: Lack of information campaign on the importance of social distancing
According to Our World in Data project, in May Kyrgyzstan became one of only four countries in the world — including Turkmenistan, Belarus and Yemen — which had no coordinated information campaign for the population.
The results were not long in coming — a rapid increase in the number of patients with coronavirus and, as it turned out, community-acquired pneumonia began from the beginning of June.
Mistake 2: Emergency measures instead of systemic strengthening of healthcare system
Another important miscalculation of the authorities — they did not act proactively. After all, the task of both quarantine and unfulfilled prevention after it is to reduce the burden on the healthcare system.
The data department of 24.kg news agency has compiled a database of government decisions during the coronavirus period. Its analysis shows that new medical departments and hospitals began to be frantically opened at the very peak of the incidence (from mid-June to the end of July), and not in advance — during a tough lockdown.
Mistake 3: Weak testing and contact tracing system
In an interview with 24.kg news agency, the Deputy Health Minister Mademin Karataev said that 326,652 tests have been made in Kyrgyzstan since the beginning of the pandemic and as of September 7, 2020. However, more detailed data, such as number of PCR tests made per week and names of regions, are not disclosed. Independent experts simply cannot estimate the extent of the epidemic in the country.
«If we count those who have contracted the infection, multiply by four, then we get 160,000 people who have been ill or carriers,» the Deputy Minister of Health assessed the possible number of people infected with COVID-19 in Kyrgyzstan.
Another important aspect of pandemic control is also far from great. Unlike most neighboring countries, contact tracing of infected people is also carried out in Kyrgyzstan in limited number of cases, Our World in Data says.
The authorities of the country have little time to correct the mistakes. The number of new cases of coronavirus in the last month is higher than during the third month of the pandemic — when a sharp increase in the number of people infected with coronavirus began in Kyrgyzstan.
Full version of the material in Russian «Расследование 24.kg: Три просчета властей, приведших к летней вспышке коронавируса» is available at the link.
Data Editors: Kristina Shveda, Anastasia Valeeva.
Illustrations: by Nadezhda Khabichevskaya
The material was created by fellows of data journalism program of Media-K project Internews in Kyrgyzstan, implemented with the support of USAID in the Kyrgyz Republic in partnership with the World Bank, DFID and IDEM. The program’s mentor is Anastasia Valeeva. The opinions and conclusions in the material do not necessarily reflect the views of Internews and its partners.
