Government has eased the nationwide Covid-19 curfew, allowing people to make movements from 4am until midnight. This is one of the resolutions taken by a cabinet meeting that sat on Wednesday, October 13, chaired by President Paul Kagame. This is the first time that preventive measures have been eased to such an extent since March last year when authorities started restricting peoples movements in a bid to curb the spread of the virus. The new measures take effect from Thursday, October 14 through November 14, and they apply to all parts of the country. Business operation-time has also been extended to 11am, and private businesses will be working at full capacity. In addition to this, swimming pools, massage parlors, saunas shall open gradually, but the clients must be fully vaccinated to be allowed access (except for persons under 18 years of age). They should also present negative Covid-19 test results taken within 72 hours. Fully vaccinated travelers to Rwanda will no longer be required to quarantine at hotels upon arrival. However, all arriving and departing passengers must present a negative Covid-19 PCR test taken within 72 prior to departure. As more and more people are getting vaccinated in the country, government has recently been easing Covid-19 related restrictions, for instance, last month, bars were allowed to progressively reopen after almost 18 months of closure. According to statistics from the Ministry of Health (MoH), by Wednesday, more than 2.7 million people in Rwanda had received the first dose of the vaccine, and of these, 1.7 had been double-jabbed. The new cases of Covid-19 have also gone down. MoH data shows that in the last 7 days, 716 new cases were registered in the country, representing a 0.6 positivity rate. Meanwhile, as it has been, meetings and conferences will also continue, but should not exceed 50% of the venue capacity and attendants should present a negative Covid-19 test. Public offices will continue to operate at 75% capacity while some employees will be working from home on a rotational basis.
