BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) -- The government of Brunei Wednesday announced the extension of COVID-19 control measures including a curfew order for 14 days, with stricter levels of punishment for violators.
According to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), the enhanced control measures will be extended by another 14 days, starting from Oct. 18 till Oct. 31, 2021.
This extension "is to ensure that the well-being of all parties continues to be safeguarded by way of reducing movement to minimize the spread of the pandemic in this country", the PMO said in a statement.
Before the detection of seven local cases on Aug. 7, Brunei had kept a record of 457 days without community infections. Facing a new wave of outbreak, the country had to introduce stricter control measures.
Besides closing religious places, schools switching to online learning, no dine-in for restaurants, and closing indoor and outdoor sports facilities, leisure centers and cinemas, Brunei also banned most of the mass gatherings, requiring all non-essential sector workers to do work-from-home and barring all residents in Brunei from leaving their houses without any important reason.
The Brunei government also introduced more control measures on Oct. 1, including a curfew and some strengthened enforcement activities.
The public is required to stay at their respective residences every night from 8 p.m. until 4 a.m. local time to reduce people's movement and the risk of COVID-19 local transmission.
The PMO said that starting Wednesday, the compound fine for violation of the curfew order and other social distancing regulations will be increased fivefold from 100 Brunei dollars (74 U.S. dollars) to 500 Brunei dollars (370 U.S. dollars) for each offense.
"Any company that fails to ensure its employees comply with the directive to stay home from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. will also be subject to a compound fine of 500 Brunei dollars," the PMO said.
In addition, the Brunei government said that any individual or company found to have disobeyed the control rules will be publicized through the mass media.
Brunei reported 193 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, bringing the national tally to 9,665.
According to the Ministry of Health, all the new cases are local infections. While the source of infection of 139 local cases is still under investigation, three new clusters have been detected and three clusters have been closed following no new detected cases in the clusters for 28 days, which brings the total number of active clusters to 163.
There are currently 2,284 active cases being treated and monitored at the National Isolation Center. A total of 7,315 recovered patients and 66 deaths from the virus have been reported so far in the country. Enditem
