We can implement Health Ministry's plan on easing Covid-19 restrictions - Saeima committee

2022-02-14
LETA/TBT Staff

RIGA - At present Latvian can afford to implement the Health Ministry's plan on easing Covid-19 restrictions, sad Saeima social and labor affairs committee chairman Andris Skride (For Development/For) in an interview with the Latvian public television.

Skride said that the number of Covid-19 patients in hospitals still is huge, and many medics, especially nurses and assistant nurses, are ill, but the plan on easing Covid-19 restrictions proposed by the Health Ministry has been discussed with medics organization and can be implemented.

Meanwhile, family physician Ainis Dzalbs in an interview with commercial TV3 television today said that the steps towards easing the restrictions should be made only when the Covid-19 incidence starts declining. Some weeks should still pass before that, he said.

Dzalbs was reserved about lifting Covid-19 certificates. He said that a Covid-19 certificate is not a document showing that a persons cannot contract Covid-19, still, it means that the disease will be much milder.

Speaking about wearing masks at school, Skride who is a medic in practice himself, said that masks are efficient in protection, therefore he believes the requirement to wear masks should be kept in force also after April.

As reported, Health Minister Daniels Pavluts (Development/For) will at the next government meeting put forward a three-stage plan for lifting Covid-19 restrictions in Latvia that the ruling coalition parties approved in principle on Thursday, February 10.

Pavluts believes that, taking into consideration the extraordinarily complicated and challenging situation in healthcare, epidemiological safety measures in Latvia will be lifted gradually, as the Health Ministry told LETA. Pavluts is also grateful to the coalition partners for "understanding the situation and support, which will make it possible to timely inform residents of when and what restrictions will be lifted and, at the same time, to maintain epidemiological stability."