President Luis Abinader suspended activities scheduled on his agenda for Wednesday after issuing decree 698-20 banning meetings of more than 10 people who change the schedule of the curfew.
After that the Cabinet of Health will announce the new measures on the part of the Government in which they include reduction of the curfew, obligatory use of masks, limitations in the schedule of sale of alcoholic drinks, among others; the activities that would lead the president were postponed little by little as the day passed.
Little acceptance
The announcement of the new measures was reported at 10:00 on Tuesday morning but it was not until 4:30 in the afternoon when the decree was issued that would endorse each of the new provisions, which caused unrest among citizens. , because they came into force on the same day including the new curfew schedule which states that all businesses must close at 7:00 p.m.
However, President Abinader was questioned by citizens through social media because a few minutes after issuing the decree, the Head of State hosted the opening of a supermarket, complying with the measures that were established, in addition it attended the delivery of recognitions realized outside the schedule of the new curfew.
The head of state was scheduled to attend the inauguration of an aqueduct and water treatment plant in Guanuma, Santo Domingo Norte municipality, Santo Domingo province, at 10:00 a.m., but two hours earlier he was notified via the Directorate of Information and Press of the Presidency, that the act was suspended.
The president had stopped attending the recognition ceremony of 29 Dominican businessmen on Tuesday night by Mercado Magazine.
Consistency with decrees
The administrative minister of the Presidency, José Ignacio Paliza, said that President Abinader has suspended several activities to maintain coherence between the decrees issued and their actions.
“Yes, the President has canceled some activities that are obviously not essential to the management of the Government and can be rescheduled very easily for other days, to maintain their levels of consistency with the decrees and provisions that the Government Dominican Republic has issued ”.
He said that “there are some activities that will be maintained, those that are very important or that can not be postponed, and those that may be postponed after trying to do them.”
An activity that will take place in the middle of yesterday and was postponed, was the signing of an agreement between the Dominican Medical College (CMD) and President Luis Abinader, who offered more details of the suspension.
Ten days after the president took power, he met with Waldo Ariel Suero, president of the CMD. who had asked the previous government to include that guild in the decisions concerning the coronavirus.
During this meeting it was agreed that CMD would participate in the meetings held to make decisions on the pandemic, but to establish the new measures, apparently this sector was not taken into account, as they have made it clear that there has agreed free traffic until one in the morning on 24 and 31 December.
The suspension of the signing coincides with the statements of Suero, who noted that this measure contradicts the biosecurity protocol established in the face of the pandemic and led to the massive spread of the virus.
Among the issues contained in this agreement were salary readjustments, pensions to doctors as well as amendments to laws for the benefit of this sector.