West Kazakhstan Region has imposed a two-week lockdown to combat the rising number of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) cases.

Citing Kabar.24, Fergana says the two-week lockdown came into force in the region on November 10. People aged above 65 are advised to stay at home.

All shopping malls and bazaars will be closed on Saturdays and Sundays.  There is a restriction on the movement of residents from 11:00 pm to 6:00 am, with the exception of local government officials, law enforcement officers, employees of ambulance and emergency medical care and some other categories.

All mass sports and cultural activities are canceled.       

West Kazakhstan Region is a region of Kazakhstan.  Its administrative center is Oral (also known as Uralsk), a city of about 200,000 inhabitants.  West Kazakhstan Region borders Aktobe Region to the east and Atyrau Region to the south, in addition to the following Russian oblasts: Astrakhan to the south-west, Volgograd to the west, Saratov to the north-west, Samara to the north and Orenburg to the north-east.

The COVID-19 pandemic in Kazakhstan is part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).  The virus was confirmed to have reached Kazakhstan on March 13, 2020.  It involved two Kazakh citizens in Almaty who were recently returned from Germany.  That same day, two more cases were confirmed with one female arriving from Italy in Nur-Sultan and the other from Germany in Almaty as well.