President Nicolás Maduro announced on Sunday that his government will be more rigorous when it comes to demanding the use of masks and ensuring that the distance in public spaces is maintained to stop the contagion of the new coronavirus, almost two weeks after suspending the measure of confinement during the month of December.
“I ask this Presidential Commission to take action on the matter to put order and apply the Law,” Maduro said in a televised government act, citing the increase in new cases in the last week and the relaxation of the voluntary use of masks. .
Maduro justified on November 29 the suspension of confinement, arguing that the statistics then showed that COVID-19 infections were “under control” in Venezuela, the need to avoid forced pauses in dozens of economic sectors and to facilitate family reunification for the Christmas holidays.
“We were very flexible and the Venezuelan people deserved this flexibility”, but in view of the disregard of the rules, we must “shake hands”, increase “surveillance and patrolling” in December, said the president, without giving other details.
After 14 continuous days of “relaxation”, the president showed images – including several photographs taken during a recent tour of the presidential caravan through the streets of Caracas – where many passersby who were not wearing masks could be seen, crowding into tents to go shopping and in public spaces in popular neighborhoods to enjoy concerts and other street shows.
The relaxation of biosecurity measures was also evident in the closing acts of the campaign of the legislative elections of December 6, particularly in the rallies of the ruling party, where hundreds of people could be seen crowded, some without masks.
This week, the Venezuelan authorities also ordered the suspension of commercial flights from the Dominican Republic and Panama. In this regard, Maduro highlighted that this decision was made when considering that of the 534 “active importers”, 174 of them were travelers from the Dominican Republic and 115 from Panama.
Flights to Mexico, Bolivia and Turkey — which are among those that were reactivated in recent weeks, after months of suspension — remain.
Since June 1, the government, with some adjustments, had been applying flexible time bands for the partial reactivation of economic activities in continuous day intervals in more than 50 sectors, followed by the return to the “radical quarantine” in the next seven days.
In Venezuela, which decreed a quarantine since March 16, there are more than 107,780 positive cases and 954 deaths. Between December 1 and December 13, 5,392 new cases were registered, which show that infections increased steadily.
Of the total cases, 4,026 are active, with a rebound of 106 more than last week, the president highlighted.
Experts argue that the low number of cases compared to other countries in the region is largely due to the isolation that the country is experiencing after years of political, economic and social crisis. The president warned that in January the intervals of relaxation and “radical quarantine” will be resumed.
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