Armenia’s leader tests positive one month after curbs are lifted

THE Armenian prime minister, who turned 45 yesterday, said he and his family had tested positive for the coronavirus and that he would be working from home.

Nikol Pashinyan said in video message posted on Facebook that his “coronavirus test was positive” and that his wife and four children were also infected.

He did not have any “visible symptoms” and would be working from home “to the best of my ability”, Mr Pashinyan added in the clip.

The former Soviet republic, with a population of around three million people, has registered 9,492 coronavirus cases and 139 deaths.

Covid-19 patients have overwhelmed hospitals and health officials last week said that intensive care beds could be soon reserved for patients with the best chance of survival.

Arsen Torosyan, the health minister, has said that out of 186 intensive care units in the country reserved for virus patients, only 32 are empty and those would soon be filled.

Mr Pashinyan’s announcement came nearly one month after Armenia largely lifted lockdown measures despite an ongoing state of emergency imposed in

March to slow the spread of the virus.

He has acknowledged failings in his government’s response including efforts to enforce antivirus measures.

He told a cabinet meeting that “false rumours that the pandemic is a fiction” were to blame. “People don’t believe that the virus exists, because 70 per cent of cases are asymptomatic,” he said.

Analysts said conspiracy theories and disinformation had undermined government efforts to fight the outbreak. “Quarantine didn’t work in Armenia,” Nuneh Bakunts, a virologist, said, because people believed disinformation and so didn’t “take the threat seriously”.

An investigation by the Uk-based website opendemocracy revealed that controversial local news portal Medmedia.am had reported the pandemic was fake and falsely claimed that a local morgue offered money to a dead patient’s relatives to sign documents saying the death was caused by the coronavirus.

Armenia’s economy grew by 7.6 per cent last year but the International Monetary Fund has forecast GDP to fall by 1.5 per cent in 2020.

Its central bank has said all sectors of the economy will suffer.

In March, the government came up with an economic stimulus package worth $303million (£242million).