The Dominica government on Tuesday announced a series of new measures aimed at curbing the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, including a curfew and increased fines for people not adhering to the Public Health Act as the authorities deal with a cluster of cases arising from two events held recently.
“We will be accepting no nonsense in the country over the next seven days and beyond, the penalty for people who fail to comply with this order has been increased to EC$5 000.” Dominica’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit said.
Skerrit said that these measures are not meant to scare the population but ensure that Dominica acts quickly to prevent the country’s COVID-19 situation from becoming worse.
Skerrit said that PCR and other tests carried out on Sunday as a result of the two public activities had showed that “an individual or individuals had entered the country illegally and took part in a bikers’ activity along with a Jam at a location in Pottersvile”, on the outskirts of Dominica’s capital on July 25th.
He said that testing done by Dominica’s ministry of health on Monday indicated that “to date there are 10 confirmed cases associated with this event, along with two imported cases, bringing the total number of active cases in Dominica to 12”.
