RIGA, Nov 25 (LETA) - Minister of Health Ilze Vinkele (For Development) has rejected claims made by Daugavpils Mayor Igors Prelatovs (Our Party) that the city's Covid-19 statistics have been ''artificially inflated''.

After yesterday's government meeting, Vinkele told members of the press that such claims are fake news, as the established Covid-19 infections are included in the statistics of the specific local government in which the respective person in declared in. ''Thus, one should not look to blame someone outside your own house, but take care of what is happening in your own house,'' the minister said.

Vinkele pointed out that the problem in this situation is that a more careless attitude has developed, although when restrictions were established at the regional level in the past, Daugavpils coped quite well.

Meanwhile, Jurijs Perevoscikovs, head of the Disease Risk Analysis and Prevention Department at the Center for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC), admitted that what Prelatovs is claiming is just not true. "We work with each individual person, and each person has an address where he or she lives. And taking this into account, statistics are formed in one or another administrative area," the epidemiologist explained.

Prelatovs previously claimed to have looked into infection data in the city and concluded that the statistics were "artificially inflated". "On a day when 50 new infections were reported, in fact there were only four from Daugavpils," Prelatovs claimed.