Manama: Oman will enact a nationwide full lockdown starting next week to curb the spread of rising coronavirus cases, the Supreme committee in-charge of tackling COVID-19 said in a statement on Tuesday.
The lockdown will apply among its governorates from July 25 to August 8, a period that covers the Eid Al Adha holiday.
All movement will be banned during the lockdown. Also, all public places and shops will be closed between 7 pm and 6 am. Police patrols and checkpoints will be intensified during the day hours, the statement said.
Ban on all gatherings, including Eid prayers, traditional Eid markets, greeting gatherings, and group celebrations of the Eid, will be continued.
All the inter-governorate checkpoints in the country will be reinstated and movements to be restricted, in line with the supreme committee direction. Strict patrolling will be in place to avoid any gathering during the Eid holidays, Royal Oman Police said.
The sultanate saw a spike in coronavirus cases and related-deaths recently, which prompted the authorities to clamp stringent preventive measures. Earlier this week, Oman police raised the fine for not wearing masks in public places from OMR 20 to 100, in a bid to curb the spread of COVID-19.
Mass gatherings before and after the Eid holidays have been blamed as a significant cause of the recent uptick in infections. Afterward, the number of cases steadily climbed so that by June, the country was registering between 800 to nearly 1,000 cases a day, while fatalities are hovering at around 4 per day.
The country, which had the lowest number of cases in the six nation GCC before June, now surged to third position in total number of infections. According to the ministry of health, more than 600 health workers in the country have tested positive for coronavirus.
The total number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the country surpassed 69,887 with 337 deaths. Of the total cases, 46,608 were cured.
The country confirmed 1,487 new cases on Tuesday alone. It was the sixth straight day that the daily caseload is hovering at 1,300. The death toll rose by 11, the highest single-day virus related death since the outbreak began
