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Haitians rushed to buy food, gas, soap and face masks on Friday after two cases of the coronavirus were confirmed to have been imported into the country, Associated Press reports.
President Jovenel Moise said Thursday that two patients had been quarantined after testing positive for the COVID-19 virus. One was a 31-year-old Haitian who had just returned from Paris and the ot
her was a Belgian volunteering in a Port-au-Prince orphanage.
Moise said the country was closing all airports, schools, factories and seaports. The measure is designed to halt new cases of the virus, but health workers said it could prevent the arrival of important medical supplies and volunteer doctors and nurses if the virus starts to spread inside the densely population nation of roughly 11 million people.
According to the United Nations, some 35% of Haitians lack basic drinking water services and two-thirds have limited or no sanitation services, making it extremely difficult for people to regularly wash their hands as recommended to deter the spread of the coronavirus.
The country just completed its first year free of cholera, a water-borne disease that was imported by U.N. peacekeepers and killed nearly 10,000 people over the last decade.
New Zeland prime minister Jacinda Ardern has asked citizens to restrict their movements around the country, and cancel all non-essential domestic travel, the Guardian’s Eleanor Ainge Roy reports from Dunedin.
Ardern also asked those aged 70 and over, or with a compromised immune system to stay home for the foreseeable future.
Those who could work from home should now do so, Ardern said, but reassured Kiwis that essential services such as supermarkets and pharmacies would remain open.
There are four alert levels in New Zealand, and the country was currently at stage two.
Ardern took a warm and smiley demeanor for her address, in a bid to reassure New Zealanders in “unprecedented times”. 14 new cases of the virus were confirmed today, bringing the total number of cases to 53. Two of the cases show no link to overseas travel, meaning community transmission may now be underway.
“Protecting New Zealanders from the virus is our number one objective, and we must take decisive action to prevent the worst occurring here,” Ardern said.
“New Zealand is fighting an unprecedented global pandemic. We must fight by going hard and going early with new measures to slow the transmission of the virus.
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