-business hours extended
-more people can go to church, mosque

IN keeping with the government’s aim of systematically reopening the country to reintroduce some level of normalcy, the Ministry of Health, on Thursday, announced a reduction in its COVID-19 curfew hours, which sees the new curfew hours being between the hours of 00:00 to 04:00 hours daily from November 1, 2021.

The new curfew was published in the Official Gazette as part of the COVID-19 emergency measures no. 24, and will be in place until November 30, 2021. This change replaces the government’s previous curfew hours of 22:30 hours to 04:00 hours which was in place for the past year.

The new gazetted orders come even as the COVID-19 cases locally continue to climb daily. On Friday, the country recorded 94 new positive cases, along with six new deaths, taking the overall death toll to 910.

Meanwhile, the government has also extended the operational business hours to 23:00 hours. These businesses include but are not limited to supermarkets; gas stations; beauty salons and barbershops; clothing, shoes and book stores, restaurants and bars.

PLACES OF WORSHIP
Meanwhile, in the newly gazetted measures, places of worship were granted approval to host 60 per cent of the building’s capacity at all religious services and gatherings.

This replaces the previous COVID-19 order which restricted places of worship to just 40 per cent of the capacity of the building. Even as the new changes are implemented from Sunday, the requirement to wear a mask in public places remain the same.

According to the gazetted orders, “no persons shall, without reasonable excuse, be without a face mask fitted to cover the nose, mouth and chin of the person when the person is (a) in public; (b) travelling in a vehicle, vessel or aircraft; or (c) at a workplace.”