TUNIS —
Tunisia
on Wednesday announced a new night-time stay-at-home order for the next two
weeks in order to tamp down surging
COVID-19 cases.
اضافة اعلان
There will be “a curfew from 10pm until 5am”,
following recommendations by the government’s scientific committee, the
presidency said in a statement.
A similar measure had been in place since 2020 but
President
Kais Saied ended it in September.
The presidency also ordered “the postponement or
cancellation of all public gatherings or demonstrations, in closed or open spaces.”
The presidency also vowed to accelerate its
vaccination campaign and urged the public to respect social distancing measures
and wear masks.
It added that it would step up checks for health
passes, which since December 22 have been required for entry to public
buildings, transport and shopping centers.
Tunisia, whose 12 million population registered new
daily COVID infections in the low hundreds throughout December, has seen an
explosion of cases in January, topping 4,800 a day on Monday — along with 11
deaths.
Tunisia in early
December announced its first case of the highly-infectious Omicron variant,
which has swept around the world, forcing governments to impose fresh measures.
The situation is a reminder of a catastrophic wave
of infections in Tunisia last July, when it registered about 200 deaths a day
from the virus. Images of overwhelmed ICUs sparked outrage, and the country
suffered the region’s highest number of deaths per capita.
That wave receded partly thanks to a mass
vaccination campaign.
Roughly 6 million Tunisians are now fully
inoculated, according to
Johns Hopkins University.
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