COVID-19: City Hall wants 3-week notice before any lockdown

Mayor of Georgetown, Ubraj Narine wants the National COVID-19 Task Force to give the City Council a three-week notice before any decision or announcement is made about a total lockdown in the country as Guyana battles the spread of COVID-19.

Mayor Narine, at a press conference held at City Hall Wednesday, said this notice will give the Council ample time to deal with the closure of municipal markets and to put systems in place to assist vulnerable communities and City Council employees.

“We have depressed areas in this city, we have people that depend on the roads for their livelihood and we will like to know from the Task Force level what are the strategies they will come up with to deal with these depressed areas,” the Georgetown Mayor said.

He added, “I am kindly asking the National Task Force to communicate with us and we also would like to have that notice to the Mayor and City Council that we can put things in place for the various markets that we control and as well to see how we can able to strategise to deal with our workers,” the Mayor said.

A curfew and other measures were implemented in early April in an effort to curb the spread of the deadly Coronavirus and is slated to come to an end on June 3, however, over the past weeks, some members of the National COVID-19 Task Force has been pushing for a complete lockdown of the country as the cases continue to increase.

A decision on whether there will be a lockdown is anticipated to be announced by this weekend.