Public Health will perform random inspections to ensure measures

Santo Domingo, DR

The Minister of Public Health, Daniel Rivera, informed that from this coming Monday the institution would have inspectors who will be “randomly” in various public, private, public use and transport facilities to “monitor” compliance with the new special measures to be applied by the government.

“This will not be a state of siege, but a monitoring will be done with our inspectors; we are going to go around randomly and we are going to see that the institutions are complying with this resolution,” expressed Rivera.

From that date on, people over 12 years old must present an identity document and their vaccination card with at least two doses of the vaccine against Covid-19, both in original and legible copy (physical or digital) to the corresponding public or private authority, to attend in person to workplaces with enclosed spaces and collective use; to attend in person to study centers of all levels, whether public or private; if you want to use means of transport, whether urban or intercity.

The same for entering bars, discotheques, grocery stores, restaurants, clubs, shopping malls, casinos, stores, or other entertainment centers. He congratulated those institutions that always had their antibacterial gel and took the temperature; now they will continue to do the same, only now they will also ask for the vaccination card, that is why it will be random,” said Dr. Rivera.

Regarding the challenge
Rivera also announced that they would study the appeal seeking the striking down of the resolution that authorizes the request of the vaccination card to access public places as an infringement on human rights and freedoms.

“According to the opinion of our experts and lawyers, this is going to be discussed and this protection of rights appeal is going to be analyzed. We base ourselves on the general law of health 42-01, in times of epidemic a series of norms and rules are put in place to avoid contagion and the protection of the majority, based on that is that we have applied the new resolution,” explained the Minister of Health.

It could be argued that the resolution seeks to coerce citizens to comply with an experimental vaccine that does not offer absolute protection against either infection from or transmission of the Coronavirus. And, while it does seem to lessen the severity of some Covid infections, this appears to be waning as well as new variants push the limits. In any case, no matter which camp you may be in, forcing citizens to bow to government regulations is a bit questionable.