VILNIUS, March 10 (Xinhua) -- The Lithuanian government on Wednesday decided to allow all shops with direct street access, and museums and galleries to reopen next week.
Starting Monday, stores, kiosks or pavilions with direct street access will be allowed to reopen if they can ensure at least 20 square meters of floor space per customer or serve only one customer at a time, according to the government.
Visits to museums, galleries and other exhibition spaces will also be allowed, on the condition that visitors buy tickets online or be registered in advance and operators will have to ensure at least 30 square meters per visitor.
Visits to these facilities in groups are limited to no more than two persons, except for members of one family or one household.
The government may also consider allowing large shopping malls and leisure centers to reopen in the near future if the COVID-19 situation does not deteriorate, said Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte at a press conference.
Starting next week, 59 primary schools in 25 out of Lithuania's 60 municipalities will be able to reopen and follow a mixed mode of distance learning and classroom learning.
The second nationwide COVID-19 lockdown was declared in Lithuania on Nov. 7, 2020 and later extended until March 31, 2021 due to the rapid spread of the coronavirus in the Baltic country.
So far, Lithuania has registered 203,386 COVID-19 cases and 3,351 deaths, according to the Department of Statistics. The incidence rate in the last 14 days stands at 231.4 cases per 100,000 residents.
As the world is struggling to contain the pandemic, vaccination is underway in an increasing number of countries with the already-authorized coronavirus vaccines. So far, 88,247 people in Lithuania have received two doses of a coronavirus vaccine.
Meanwhile, 263 candidate vaccines are still being developed worldwide -- 81 of them in clinical trials -- in countries including Germany, China, Russia, Britain, and the United States, according to information released by the World Health Organization on March 9. Enditem
