President Danilo Medina defended on Wednesday, 22 April 2020, the partial lockdown in the country. He said the government has allowed energy, agriculture and industrial sectors to continue to operate. The President says it is not yet time to open up the other activities. He spoke during the inauguration of the C5i monitoring facility at the Ministry of Defense. The Ministry of Defense’s Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cybersecurity and Intelligence Center (C5i) is now integrated into the national efforts against the coronavirus.
President Medina said that the virus has not yet plateaued, and this is not a time about talking about removing restrictive measures. He said this would be taking “an unnecessary risk.”
“We must not despair, the time will come. There is no one here who wants to impose restrictions,” Medina said.
The Dominican Republic is under a declaration of state of emergency until 29 April 2020. Presidency Minister Gustavo Montalvo said that the government has not yet decided to request the extension of the state of emergency in the country.
President Medina admitted that the measures were not taken before, because of the municipal elections scheduled for 15 March. Because of a “matter of delicacy and prudence, we let the elections happen before taking drastic measures,” he said. He said the opposition had accused the government of putting fear into people so they would not turn out to vote, even when a first case was diagnosed in the country on 1 March.
Medina is optimistic the country is doing well in handling the crisis. He said that when the first diagnostic tests were carried out the positive rate was 42%, and this has now dropped to 17.4%.
“The government has decided to wait to see how things happen, see how the situation evolves and then, as the deadline approaches, make the decision in that sense,” the coordinator of the High Commission for the Prevention and Control of the Coronavirus said.
In this scenario, Medina also said that the government has begun to execute an economic contingency plan to support micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the country.
Read more in Spanish:
Diario Libre
El Dia
23 April 2020