Before Papikyan's Wedding, Officials Infected with Coronavirus Were Already Present, Minister Says

The Minister of Health Anahit Avanesyan has predicted an increase in positive cases due to the active spread of the coronavirus 'Omicron' variant. Daily cases have already surpassed 2,000, and according to the minister, this is still not the peak. The reason is that the 'Omicron' variant spreads much more quickly.

A few days ago, on January 22, the entire government, along with parliament members and senior officials of the armed forces, attended the wedding of Minister of Defense Suren Papikyan, and just a few days later, on January 26, it was announced that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan had contracted the coronavirus. Subsequently, reports emerged in the media about the infection of other high-ranking officials as well.

In an interview with 'Hraparak' newspaper, Avanesyan first stated that there has been an upward trend in the spread of the disease over the past three weeks and added that there were already officials infected with coronavirus before the Saturday event. 'So, I don't see anything extraordinary here,' said Avanesyan.

- But the fact that the Prime Minister contracted the virus coincided with the period immediately after attending Papikyan's wedding. Don’t you think that the wedding, with its large number of attendees, may have been a source of transmission for the infection?

- Look, there can be various reasons for the infections of more than 2,000 people registered these days, and it's neither meaningful nor appropriate to draw a parallel here.

- Were you asked for your QR code when entering the restaurant during the wedding?

- Yes.

- Was it just you or other attendees were asked too?

- I speak for myself, yes, I have been asked for my QR code every place I visited, including that day.

- Although mass gatherings are not prohibited by law today, do you not think that from the perspective of personal responsibility, government members should be cautious and avoid such large gatherings, as that wedding could have been a source of virus transmission?

- Look, definitely, government members and high-ranking officials, guided by a higher sense of responsibility, were the first to get vaccinated at the very first opportunity. They follow all restrictive measures, wear masks, etc., and I repeat, they are currently complying with legally established rules and organizing their lives within that framework, just like all other citizens. I have nothing more to add.

- But, hypothetically, people may not have been wearing masks at the wedding, neither you nor others.

- I repeat, as you are well aware, there is no prohibition on wearing masks while eating in public dining places.

- You mentioned that these numbers are still not the peak, and you expect an increase in cases. What preventive measures are you planning in response to that? Is it possible that new restrictions may be implemented, and could there be a problem with hospital bed capacity in this situation?

- Of course, the hospitalization rate among positive cases is significantly lower than in the case of the 'Delta' variant, but we understand that when we have 2,500, and later that number increases, we see that, unfortunately, in neighboring Georgia, 17,000 positive cases were registered yesterday. Among such a large number of positive cases, even 5 percent constitutes a considerable figure, and we cannot take this lightly. We all understand that the health system continues to operate in a highly overloaded regime to provide proper medical assistance. We have a clear plan for the expansion of our hospital bed capacity, and according to this plan, we will act. If needed in the coming days, new beds will be added; other medical centers will also be involved in COVID treatment. Currently, we have about a thousand hospitalized citizens benefiting from inpatient medical assistance.

- Is there a possibility of new restrictions or preventive measures?

- At this moment, we do not have any drafts for new restrictions; I can say that the regime we currently have is still in place.