Only 10 per cent of available lung ventilators are now being used in Belarusian hospitals, Health Minister Uladzimir Karanik said on Wednesday.
“The main task is to prevent an avalanche-like growth in order not to leave the healthcare system overstretched. Our healthcare facilities are using less than 10% of the available bed capacity and less than 10% of the fleet of ventilators to provide treatment today,” state-run news agency BelTA quotes the minister.
Last week, the minister claimed that there was a ‘positive trend’ in Vitsebsk. According to him, the growth of infections is within the projected numbers in other regions. Belarus’ Vitsebsk region ranks second after the city of Minsk in terms of the number of patients with coronavirus.
The country has more than 25 ventilators per 100,000 people, the top health official said at the press conference in late March.
Based on U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, Belsat.eu estimated that the critical mass of coronavirus-infected people in Belarus would range between 48,000 and 72,000. Presumably, around 4-5% of them will be put on ventilators.
As of April 22, there have been 7,281 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Belarus (+558 over the day before); 769 have recovered, 58 patients have died.
