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Offices, transports reopen

Maintaining health directives main challenge


Published : 31 May 2020 09:58 PM | Updated : 07 Sep 2020 10:33 PM

The issue of maintaining health directives has appeared to be the main challenge for Bangladesh as the government has reopened all the offices and transport on Sunday ending a 66-day public holiday due to the ongoing countrywide and global coronavirus pandemic.

Although the offices and transport have been reopened on condition of maintaining social distance and other health directives, on the first day of the reopening people are seen caring little of maintaining social distancing. 

Almost all the transports were carrying passengers without maintaining health directives. Many of the offices also did not obey the health rules properly. 

In this circumstance, the removal of lockdown might have deteriorated the situation of the country. The number of infection by the deadly coronavirus is apprehended to be increased and also the number of deaths might rise.

It should be mentioned that at least 40 people died with coronavirus infections in the last 24 hours. The death toll now stands at 650, and the death rate is at 1.38 percent, said Prof Dr Nasima Sultana, additional director general (administration) of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS). The highest number of deaths reported in 24 hours came the same day as the government reopened offices and transport countrywide.

Earlier on May 28 the cabinet department has instructed to reopen offices and run vehicles in compliance with the health directives. Besides, to maintain required distance among the passengers the railways authorities have decided to carry half the passengers at the previous fare. 

The government has increased bus fares by 60 percent as those will carry half the passengers to ensure social distancing among the passengers. BIWTA has also banned carrying of more passengers by launch. 

However, even after taking these steps, experts think that maintaining social distance is a big challenge. Their fear is that the number of people infected with the coronavirus will increase if they fail to address that challenge.

In this regard, State Minister for Public Administration Farhad Hossain said, "We are in a strict position about wearing face masks and maintaining physical distance because of the risk of coronavirus infection. Anyone not using the mask he will be punished, and a circular in this regard will be issued soon. There are also laws in this regard.”

Zahidur Rahman, Assistant Professor of the Virology Department of Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College, said the decision was taken to open all offices, shops and businesses across the country from May 31 without considering the opinion of experts. 

He said, “This decision could be suicidal for us as there is a lack of awareness among the people of our country. Maintaining the physical distance of people in the service sectors will be a big challenge.”

It might be mentioned that as part of the measures to tackle the COVID-19 situation, the government authorities have issued a 15-point directive restricting all public activities from May 31 to June 15 when the offices and services would run cautiously.

According to an order issued by the Cabinet Division, all government, semi-government, autonomous and private offices will remain open on a limited scale under their own management from May 31.

However, the order exempted ‘vulnerable people, sick employees and pregnant women’ from attending offices and directed that all meetings would be held through virtual media debarring physical presence of people in such conferences unless the situation demanded so in extraordinary cases.

The government also allowed “restricted reopening” of public transport services like passenger buses, trains and ferries with “limited number of passengers” who must wear protective masks during their movements while operators were asked to strictly follow the health directives related to COVID-19.

The private aviation operators, however, were allowed to restore flight services under their own management maintaining the health guidelines.

As part of the conditions, shops would remain open from 8:00am to 4:00pm strictly maintaining social distance and other health guidelines.

But public movement from one district to another will be controlled strictly and monitored through security check posts at the entrance and exit points of the each of the country’s 64 districts.

The government order also said that despite the eased shutdown, the existing ban on public gatherings and their movement without urgent necessity from 8:00pm to 6:00am would remain enforced while violation of the order would be treated as a punishable offence.