COVID-19: Egyptian MPs demand gov’t to ban traveling between governorates

CAIRO – 8 April 2020: A number of parliamentarians demanded to suspend traveling between governorates for 14 days as a precautionary measure to combat the spread of the deadly coronavirus.

The Parliament members also called for allocating a quarantine hospital in each governorate, away from urban areas.

Within this framework, MP Soliman Fadl el-Omery submitted an urgent statement to the prime minister on suspending citizens’ movement between governorates.

Omery stressed that the government exerts extensive efforts to stop the spread of the virus, adding that traveling between governorates will waste these efforts, and contribute to transferring the virus between cities.

He further called for allowing some authorities and institutions to transfer supplies and food commodities taking into consideration all protection and safety procedures.

The Egyptian Ministry of Health recorded Tuesday 128 new cases for of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) and nine deaths. "Also, 17 patients, including one foreigner, were released from a quarantine hospital after recovering from coronavirus," added the ministry in a statement.

The number of cases who tested negative for coronavirus after being quarantined rose to 427, 276 of them are fully recovered, according to the ministry’s spokesperson Khaled Megahed.

The new positive cases are all Egyptians, some of them have recently returned from abroad and others contracted the virus from previous cases.

The total number of cases who contracted the infectious virus rose to 1450, including 276 recovered and 94 deaths, according to the Egyptian Ministry of Health.