Latvian Healthcare System Days Away From Collapse Amid COVID-19 Surge - Major Clinic

The head of Health Center 4, which bills itself as Latvia's largest private ambulatory medical institution, warned Monday that a surge in COVID-19 cases had pushed the healthcare sector to the breaking point

RIGA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 18th October, 2021) The head of Health Center 4, which bills itself as Latvia's largest private ambulatory medical institution, warned Monday that a surge in COVID-19 cases had pushed the healthcare sector to the breaking point.

"There is a week left until a catastrophe in the healthcare sphere," Maris Revalds told reporters.

Revalds said medical services could soon be reduced to the bare minimum, putting the lives of people in need of time-critical medical care at risk. He said a nationwide lockdown was needed.

The small Baltic nation of 1.8 million has been recording new cases in excess of 2,000 every day.

The Johns Hopkins University said on Sunday that Latvia saw the world's highest number of weekly cases per million people in the previous week. Yuri Perevoshchikov, the chief epidemiologist at Latvia's CDC, called it an "anti-record."