On Thursday, the Egyptian cabinet announced that it would allow gyms and health clubs to operate nationwide, at a capacity of 25 percent and to open from 6am to 9pm, starting July 15, according to the Minister of Youth and Sports Ashraf Sobhi.
Today's announcement comes as part of Egypt's plan to relax such measures over coronavirus, as the government has previously announced that it will allow restaurants, coffee shops, sporting clubs and places of worship to reopen starting Saturday.
It will also lift the nighttime curfew in place since mid-March.
Gyms have been closed since mid-March as the country had adopted a series of strict preventive measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
The relaxed measures come at a time when Egypt is seeing a surge of new coronavirus cases in recent weeks, with 59,561 infections and 2,450 deaths confirmed by the health ministry.
Coffee shops and restaurants will be allowed to open at a capacity of 25 percent until 10 pm, while shops will be required to close at 9 pm instead of the current 6pm.
Mosques and churches will also be allowed to reopen for daily prayers and mass services as of Saturday, but will remain closed for the Muslim Friday noon prayers and for Christian Sunday mass. Funeral and wedding halls annexed to places of worship will remain shut nationwide.
Notably, Egypt registered on Wednesday 1,420 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total cases to 59,561 since the beginning of the virus outbreak.
“Eighty-five more deaths were confirmed; raising the total number to 2,450,” Khaled Megahed, the Health Ministry’s spokesman, said in a statement.
“Up to 15,935 coronavirus patients have recovered so far,” the spokesman said.
“As many as 400 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 17,434 after getting proper treatment in coordination with the World Health Organization (WHO).
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