Albanian President Ilir Meta has called on the Ministry of Health to create a new strategy for managing the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a post on Facebook, he said he believes that a new strategy is needed, one which is comprehensive and built on the advice of local and international epidemiologists, virologists, and immunologists.
He noted that the number of deaths reached 18 in one day and that there were ambulances arriving at the COVID-19 hospital “every 13 minutes”. Additionally, he accused the government of not having a concrete vaccination plan in place and for failing to improve conditions in hospitals. Meta also said there was “no effective measure to prevent the spread of the pandemic to the population.
In order to combat the situation, increased public spending on vaccination, treatment, testing, and tracking is important at this time. He also called on citizens to be careful and respect measures.
Albania continues to have a low rate of COVID-19 testing meaning the real rate of infection is not known. Hospitals are at around 80% capacity.
To date, there have been 1600 reported deaths and 95,726 confirmed cases. There are 585 people hospitalized out of which, 37 are in intensive care and 12 are intubated.
