Denver- The COVID-19 pandemic continues to surge across Morocco, with the latest Health Ministry report showing 10,828 new cases. This brings the total active COVID-19 case rate to 80,839 within the country.
The death toll within the past 24 hours has climbed to 104 individuals. Moroccan officials continue to battle COVID-19 and its variants, and are urging Moroccans to continue adhering to the government issued sanitary practices.
Earlier this month, government officials announced the extension of nightly curfews, and limited travel to and from several cities where COVID rates are soaring.
The report stated that 44.3% of the country’s intensive care beds were currently occupied, with 376 new severe cases of COVID reported within the last 24 hours. Cases continue to be predominantly found around the Casablanca-Settat, Tangier-Tetouan-Al Hoceima, and the Rabat-Sale-Kenitra regions of the country.
Morocco continues to work towards expanding vaccine access with advanced measures, and recent policy changes have expanded eligibility to all Moroccans twenty or older to get vaccinated.
New initiatives include the digitization of vaccinations, in order to streamline the process for citizens to get vaccinations. A new “smart” vaccine center idea could potentially see a vaccination rate of 4,000 citizens per day, according to experts.
Morocco has also begun researching domestic vaccine production, with the help of Chinese pharmaceutical companies. This will enable the country to move away from foreign dependence on vaccination supplies, and lower the cost to produce and distribute vaccines nationwide.
There has been criticism from international health advocacy groups during the pandemic of vaccine hoarding in several Western countries. Recently, pharmaceutical group Moderna announced it was buying back millions of vaccine doses, in preparations to resell the stock at an inflated price. Meanwhile, several countries in Africa are concerned as health care workers continue to be exposed to the virus, with little vaccine access or medical support from wealthier nations.
