Government relaxes curfew, bars, gyms and grocery stores despite increase in reported deaths

Surprisingly, the Dominican government announced today a relaxation of the curfew schedule at a time when reports from the Ministry of Public Health and the Directorate of Epidemiology report an increase in the number of people killed in recent weeks.

During the last four days, 45 deaths have been reported in the country due to covid-19. Likewise, in the previous 24 hours, the system registered 1,549 new cases of covid-19, while 12,141 samples were reported to have been processed in that same time. Authorities declared a slight drop in positivity, presenting a slight decrease in the last four weeks. There are 12 fatalities.

Given this panorama, the call of a press conference of the Health Cabinet, coordinated by the Vice President of the Republic Raquel Peña, to inform new measures in relation to the fight against the coronavirus, awakened the expectation of an increase in possible restrictions in curfew and business operations.

However, it was noted that, far from increasing restrictions, the curfew schedule was relaxed.

The curfew will be Monday through Friday from 7:00 pm to 5:00 am, and Saturday and Sunday from 5:00 pm to 5:00 am. A three-hour grace period is provided.

Bars, gyms, and grocery stores will be able to operate. Also, the Vice President of the Republic, Raquel Peña, announced that gyms, bars, restaurants, and grocery stores would open at 60% of their capacity.

All measures will take effect from

All the measures will take effect from Wednesday 27  to 8 February. Peña announced they have prepared a set of inspectors to monitor strict compliance.

She announced that they had prepared a group of inspectors to monitor strict compliance.

The measures will be evaluated daily. They are not written in stone, said the vice president.

Concern. Experts are concerned that each day remains above the 1,500 cases of covid-19 caused by SARS-Cov-2 and maintains the current state of emergency in the last month.

Official data indicate that as of January 20, 199,672 confirmed cases of covid-19 have been reported and that the number of active cases verified with the disease reaches 51,170.