Egypt Tightens Coronavirus Measures during Eid Holiday

On Sunday, the Egyptian Prime Minister Dr. Mustafa Madbouli announced new stricter coronavirus measures during the Islamic Eid El-Fitr holiday.

In a televised speech, Madbouli said that a nationwide curfew will begin at 5 pm instead of the current 9 pm till 6 am starting from Sunday through Friday, in a step aims to curb the outbreak of the deadly virus.

He noted that all shops, malls, beaches and parks will be completely shut, in addition to halting the public transport during the 6-day holiday.

The Premier stated that the curfew hours will start at 8 pm for 2-weeks afterwards, noting that life will gradually return to normal with certain precautionary measures from second half of June.

He added that the world started to move toward plans to "co-exist" with the coronavirus, so the Egyptian state and people have to work on restoring normal life while taking into consideration some preventive measures.

With regard Thanaweya Amma (third year of secondary school), Madbouli announced that the exams will  start on June 21st.

Egypt and coronavirus

Notably, Egypt confirmed on Saturday 491 new coronavirus cases, upping the total number of confirmed cases to 11,719.

“Twenty more deaths were confirmed; raising the total number to 612,” Khaled Megahed, the Health Ministry’s spokesman, said in a statement.

“Up to 2,950 coronavirus patients have recovered so far,” the spokesman said.

“As many as 151 Egyptians were among the recovered patients today,” he added.

Also, the number of coronavirus patients who had now been retested for the virus and had received negative results has reached 3,526 after getting proper treatment in coordination with the World Health Organization (WHO).

Earlier, Dr. John Jabbour, the WHO representative, noted that Egypt seriously dealt with the novel coronavirus since the start of its outbreak.

In Egypt, 85% of the positive cases had recovered without treatment because their symptoms were simple, he said.

According to him, Egypt faces many challenges, topped by coordinating among all the health-related sectors and making the best use of the state’s revenues in the fight against the epidemic, in addition to addressing the social stigma associated with the disease and supporting the medical staff who are standing on the front-lines and risking their own lives to treat infected patients.

The WHO official urged all the people to follow protective measures and stay at home to protect themselves and their loved ones against the disease.

How To protect yourself from Coronavirus: 

-Wash your hands frequently with soap and water or use an alcohol-based hand rub if your hands are not visibly dirty as washing hands with soap and water eliminates the virus if it is on the hands.

-When coughing and sneezing, cover mouth and nose with flexed elbow or tissue – discard tissue immediately into a closed bin and clean your hands with alcohol-based hand rub or soap and water to prevent the spread of germs and viruses. If you sneeze or cough into your hands, you can pass the virus to other people that you have contact with.

-Eating fruits and vegetables that contain Vitamin C so that your immune system could be enhanced for better and be able to confront viruses.

-Avoid touching eyes, nose and mouth as hands touch many surfaces, which can be contaminated with the virus. If you touch your eyes, nose or mouth with your contaminated hands, the virus from the surface may infect you.

Accordingly, you need to keep surrounding surfaces clean and free of coronavirus.

Make sure to keep all surrounding surfaces clean, even those that don’t usually cross minds like: keyboards, phone receivers, doorknobs, light switches, and remote controls.