Health Minister favors relaxing curfew at Christmas only for family gatherings

NAVARRETE. The Minister of Public Health, Dr. Plutarco Arias, agreed to make the curfew hours more flexible to allow mobility to commercial establishments and family gatherings during the Christmas festivities.

However, the official clarified that they would not allow parties with crowds of people in parks and neighborhoods.

Currently, the schedule that prohibits free transit as a measure to help prevent coronavirus infections is established from Monday to Friday from 9:00 at night to 5:00 in the morning and on Saturdays and Sundays from 7:00 in the night at 5:00 in the morning.

“We can make some suggestion to make the schedule more flexible due to the curfew, but you know that the President of the Republic is the one who will take the last measures in this regard,” Arias explained.

The Minister of Health considers that the restrictions to circulate on the streets, physical distancing, and other measures adopted to counteract the coronavirus are essential to maintaining them to continue achieving better results, lower the curve and disappear until the vaccine arrives.

He said that the authorities are making all the necessary efforts to continue fighting Covid-19 in the Dominican Republic, which is why they require all citizens’ support to achieve the expected objectives.

Plutarco Arias said that all over the world, sacrifices are being made with confinement due to the pandemic, in some countries more than others, such as the United States and others in Europe. “Here in the country, there is a low rate of positivity in relation to those other countries, and we would like it to be lower,” he said.

He recalled that never before had the world experienced a health crisis like this, since 1918 when the Spanish Flu, but that at that time, there was not as much mobility as now.

The official spoke before the delivery of a Diagnosis and Primary Care Center, in the Navarrete municipality, in a ceremony led by President Luis Abinader. The health center is a first-class hospital structure with equipment at the service of the community.