Ethiopia announces state of emergency to contain COVID-19 spread

Ethiopia has declared a state of emergency in the country to deal with the spread of contagious COVID-19. Ethiopian PM Abiy Ahmed released a statement regarding this, which stated that as the Coronavirus pandemic is getting worse, the Ethiopian Government has decided to declare this emergency under Article 93 of the constitution.

He also vowed to take all necessary measures, if things go out of control. However, as of now, there is no clarity as to how day-to-day activities will be carried out, or how this emergency will affect them. Authorities have already implemented some strict measures to contain the virus’ spread, such as closing the schools, sealing borders, asking most of the service people to work from home, banning public gatherings, and much more.Reportedly, till now, Ethiopia has recorded more than 50 positive cases of COVID-19. As per reports, a number of African governments have already imposed lockdowns or curfews to contain the virus. However, the situations can go uphill any time as per the World Health Organization. As such, Ethiopia has now joined other regions, including Uganda, Rwanda, and Mauritius, to impose such an act although it refrained from announcing lockdown initially.

Referring to this, William Davison, Senior Ethiopia Analyst for the International Crisis Group, stated that there is a lot of uncertainty about the extent to which the Coronavirus may have spread till now in Ethiopia. He added that not many have been tested, which is the reason why a huge number of infections are not being reported yet.