Bangladesh government said on Monday that it was considering a series of fresh restrictions for controlling the feared spread of the Omicron variant of coronavirus.
The potential Covid restrictions included limiting restaurant access to only vaccinated people and punishing those not wearing masks outdoors.
‘An official notice about the matter will be released by the cabinet division after 15 days,’ said the health minister Zahid Maleque as he emerged from a special inter-ministerial meeting in Dhaka on Monday night.
The meeting was held at the Secretariat and attended by top health officials and some other ministers. Deputy commissioners and district police chiefs joined the meeting virtually.
‘These steps are to prevent Omicron from spreading,’ said the health minister as he said that they were worried from Covid infection jumping to over three per cent from one per cent in a very short time.
Screening and testing capacity at land and airports will be further increased, said Zahid Maleque, adding that they are considering quarantine of infected foreign travellers under police guard.
‘Police protection is needed so that the infected individuals cannot escape,’ he said.
The meeting also discussed limiting social, political and other types of public gatherings, according to the minister.
The meeting also discussed operating public transport at a limited capacity ensuring that vehicles carry fewer passengers than their seats, the minister said.
‘Mask will be mandatory for going anywhere – to shops or mosques or while riding buses or trains,’ said the minister, adding that those not wearing masks will be fined through mobile courts.
A vaccination certificate will be needed for having a meal at a restaurant, he said, adding that restaurants entertaining requests from unvaccinated customers will be fined.
‘The production of vaccination certificate will be mandatory for eating at restaurants,’ said Zahid Maleque.
The minister said that the steps were being considered to avoid a lockdown that might hamper businesses and educational activities again.
‘We are not considering lockdown an option right now. We are trying to keep Omicron infection under control,’ said Zahid Maleque.
Education minister Dipu Moni on Monday said that the educational institutions would be closed again if the Covid-19 situation worsened.
‘We are closely observing the coronavirus situation as always. If we think that the number of classes should be reduced for the health interests of the students and teachers we will do that. If we have to close educational institutions we will do that as well,’ she said.
She was talking with reporters at the International Mother Language Institution in the capital after a programme.
The minister said that they would wait till March to understand the coronavirus situation before reopening schools fully.
‘We will understand the situation in March. We do not see that situation till now,’ she said, adding, ‘We will have to stay very alert.’
The DGHS data showed that Covid infection went up by 40 per cent in December, compared with November, the rise occurring after the detection of the Omicron variant on December 11.
Bangladesh so far confirmed 10 Omicron cases with a possibility of community transmission, particularly in Dhaka, of the newly detected Covid variant.
The world is undergoing another Covid wave, perhaps the worst in terms of Covid infection, with the daily global Covid cases making a new record.
The increase in global Covid cases is believed to have been caused by the Omicron variant.
The variant was first detected on November 24 in South Africa and spread to over 100 countries in all six continents across the world in about a month.
The highly mutated Omicron is four times more infectious than the Alpha and Beta variants and twice as infectious as the Delta variant as it can easily dodge immunity, scientists said.
International researchers said that the Omicron is 67–80 per cent less deadly than the Delta variant.
Covid-19 has so far claimed 28,081 and the tally of Covid cases 15, 87,140 since the detection of the first case in Bangladesh on March 8, 2020.
