After the State of Emergency Command session, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced during a briefing that the situation surrounding the coronavirus continues to remain serious. Armenia had 1,000 new cases over the weekend and the healthcare system continues to remain overwhelmed. There is bad news from other countries. “A new wave of the coronavirus is spreading and it is causing us to have a stricter view of our current situation.” The Prime Minister said that Armenia’s strategy continues to remain the same, but the administrative punishments will not have any results if citizens do not show responsibility.
Nikol Pashinyan said that citizens do not believe in the influence that their behavior will have on their situation. “It was even surprising to me that there are many citizens who do not know people who have the coronavirus. There are still people in Armenia who have not faced the problem. They, their friends, and their relatives have not faced this issue and that is making the problem more difficult for us.”
The Prime Minister also thanked the Red Cross for distributing masks and for working with and helping citizens.
Pashinyan said that the police have been issuing 3,000 fines over the past few days due to the fact that citizens are not wearing masks, but their goal is not to fine people. “It’s the opposite. The purpose of these fines is to encourage our citizens to wear masks, especially since their effectiveness has been proven internationally.”
Read also
According to Pashinyan, there is a strategic red line. “When we see that our healthcare system can no longer handle the situation and it cannot even treat citizens, we will have no other choice but to go back under lockdown and to have even heavier restrictions in order to overcome this situation. Knowing that this will damage our economy, I hope that we will start to understand the seriousness of the situation and the change in our behavior will be the step that needs to be taken in order for us to overcome the pandemic.”
Hripsime Jebejyan
