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…urges citizens to comply with prevention measures

DPI – Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony is again urging citizens to be careful and not overindulge as they celebrate the New Year.

Minister Anthony cautioned against overindulging alcohol and neglecting the basic COVID-19 guidelines of social distancing and wearing masks.

He made the appeal during Wednesday’s COVID-19 update.

“During December, Christmas and the New Year people tend to splurge, they eat more, drink more and because of that in January they begin feeling the ill effects of this overindulgence, so we hope people understand the consequences of these things, and perhaps they would prevent them from happening. That aside, I think what is more important is the current pandemic that we have on hand,” he said.

Minister Anthony reminded citizens that failure to comply with prevention measures would result in spikes in COVID-19 cases.

“We have been talking to people, we have been warning people to continue to take preventative measures, and hopefully people would listen to us, and do the right things. If they don’t, then what you will notice, is that we will get a surge in cases in January. While we don’t want that to happen, it will be inevitable if people don’t comply with the guidelines that we have put out,” the Health Minister said.

Minister Anthony said while the number of active cases in the country has dropped to 370 today from 550 a week ago, people should still follow the preventative measures.

“While that looks like a nice number, when you increase testing in practical areas or if you are more aggressive in a particular area with testing, you will see those numbers going up, so a lower number right now does not mean that somehow we are out of the woods. So, I want to urge people to be careful because we still have a long way to go if we’re going to exit this pandemic,” he added.

Dr. Anthony said the National COVID-19 Task Force is currently finalising the COVID-19 measures for January 2021, which should be issued on Thursday.