The emergency situation will be extended / Article / LSM.lv

Minister of Health Ilze Hänķele (“For Development / Par!”) Predicts that the state of emergency for reducing the spread of Covid-19 in the country will be extended. This was announced by the Minister at a remote press conference of the Ministry of Health (MoE) on Tuesday.

There will be a quiet holiday

Nikele explained that the situation has stabilized, but no reduction in the number of infections has been observed. The number of people admitted to hospitals is projected to increase over the next four weeks.

“Unfortunately, both because people are tired of the long-lasting pandemic and, possibly due to various psychological and financial reasons, the readiness to strictly limit and reduce contacts and mobility is lower than in the spring,” emphasized Herķele.

The Minister stated that the emergency situation will not end on December 6. She mentioned that this year’s December holiday will have to be spent in a quiet atmosphere. At the end of the year, residents will have to consider both visiting friends and relatives and traveling within Latvia.

“It means that this holiday will be quiet. This means that we will celebrate with the family. This means that just like in the spring, at Easter, we will refrain from visiting our relatives, friends, grandparents at Christmas and New Year.

The government has no interest in operating this emergency for a day longer than is objectively necessary, “said the Minister.

The MoD’s proposals for controlling the epidemiological situation will continue to be considered by the Cabinet of Ministers on Tuesday. They will impose various restrictions on education and sports.

At the meeting on Tuesday, November 24, the government did not yet decide on the extension of the emergency situation, as there was a wide-ranging debate on other issues at the meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers.

“It was not decided today because there was a sufficiently wide and long discussion both about these regional restrictions and especially about all support mechanisms. This decision obviously has to be made next week,” the minister said.

Asked by what date it is planned to extend the emergency situation, the Minister said that there is no decision on extending the emergency situation yet, therefore it is not yet possible to say for how long it could be extended. “I will not speculate on the versions at the moment,” the minister said.

The state of emergency is currently set to run from 9 November to 6 December.

Restrictions in education

If the educational institution decides to organize the study process for 1st-6th grades in person:

• not less than 3 square meters of classroom area per student must be provided;
• teachers will have to wear a face mask both inside and outside of class.

If this cannot be ensured, young students will also learn at a distance. “We cannot conclude that the main factor influencing the increase in morbidity could be students. Rather, they become infected from adults – they are more likely to become infected from teachers if the learning process is continued in person.

The risk of developing Covid-19 is three times higher for teachers than for students. ”

commented Yuri Perevoshchikov, an epidemiologist at the Center for Disease Prevention and Control (SPKC).

In adult education, as well as in higher education and vocational education:

• practical classes, which cannot be performed remotely, may take place in one room with only ten people.

Restrictions on sports and entertainment

There will be stricter requirements for indoor sports:

• indoor sports will still be allowed only individually or one-on-one with a coach;
• one person will have to allocate at least 15 square meters of premises;
• the occupancy of the premises will not exceed 20% of the maximum number of people allowed in the infrastructure of the premises.

Entertainment services can be provided remotely. In turn, the rehearsals of amateur groups (one-on-one) will be allowed until 22:00.

The above restrictions are the VM’s offer to the government. They have yet to be decided on Tuesday. The government will also decide on stricter Covid-19 restrictions in six municipalities. Restrictions are planned to be tightened in municipalities, where the 14-day cumulative morbidity rate per 100,000 inhabitants will be twice as high as the national average last week.

Due to local government restrictions, the MoE proposes that the SPKC publish the latest data every Tuesday, but stricter requirements would apply from Thursday of the week in question. The requirements will be valid for a limited time.

CONTEXT:

During the Covid-19 outbreak in the spring, an emergency situation was declared in Latvia to control the new coronavirus. The situation was stable in the summer, but the morbidity at the end of September fast increased. The government tightened security measures, but the incidence of Covid-19 continued to rise.

In order to limit the spread of Covid-19 in Latvia, the government decided to re-declare a state of emergency in the country, which will be in force from November 9 to December 6, new stricter restrictions have been introduced during it.

Latvian entrepreneurs during the current emergency situation There are three types of support – downtime allowances, subsidized jobs and a one-off working capital subsidy.

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