Tunisian Prime Minister, Hichem Mechichi authorised on Monday the introduction of a nationwide curfew in light of a significant increase in COVID-19 cases.
“Mechichi permitted all governors to announce a curfew in their provinces starting from Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2020,” the government said in a statement published on its website.
From Oct. 13 to Oct.16, the health ministry registered more than 5,000 daily cases of the infection, and a total of 114 people died during this period.
Over the course of a work session held at the Kasbah government palace, the prime minister also discussed the security situation in Tunisia with a number of senior security officials and the interior minister.
Prior to these developments, the authorities of the two eastern provinces, Sousse and Monastir, had already imposed a coronavirus-related curfew from Oct. 1 to Oct.15.
Public health measures aimed to tackle COVID-19 were initiated by the Tunisian government back in January 2020 and were subsequently lifted in June.
In the early summer, the authorities had allowed the citizens’ movement between provinces and lifted the curfew.
On June 27, Tunisia opened its air, land and sea borders, allowing foreign travelers to enter the country.
The global COVID-19 caseload surpassed the milestone of 40 million on Monday, reaching 40,040,902, according to the Centre for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
The number of victims who have succumbed to the disease worldwide totaled 1,113,750, the data showed.
The U.S. has suffered the most from the pandemic, with 8,154,936 cases and 219,674 fatalities, the tally showed.
Countries with more than 1,000,000 cases also include India, Brazil and Russia, according to the center’s website.
Many countries and regions have seen a second wave of COVID-19 and a soaring number of new infections over the past months.
