Private Sector Supports Doctors Call for Voluntary Quarantine in Nicaragua

The Cosep business association issues pronouncement asking non-essential businesses to “close” and insisting that the government must take some action.

By Yader Luna (Confidencial)

HAVANA TIMES – The Superior Council of Private Enterprise of Nicaragua (Cosep) urged the population to stay at home, and asked its affiliates to make some decisions, given the massive rate of COVID-19 contagion in the country.  They also reiterated their call for the government to “assume their responsibility” and comply with the “public health measures” recommended by the World Health Organization.

The large business owners were reacting to the united call issued recently by diverse Nicaraguan Medical Associations. These Associations urged the population to join forces in a voluntary “national quarantine” in the face of the “unstoppable” rise in Coronavirus cases in the country.

“Due to the situation we face, this is the moment when we should all assume our responsibility as citizens … It’s the moment when the population in general, across the length and breadth of the country, should remain at home, because it’s the way to avoid spreading [the virus], and to mitigate and lessen the contagion,” they affirmed.

The statement added: “this is a battle that all of us must fight in a united way, so that we have some possibilities of effectively saving lives.”

In regard to the doctors’ call for quarantine, Cosep asked “all those businesses that are non-essential and that have conditions to do so, to close their operations while the rate of infection is being reduced,” using as a reference point the three or four weeks that the doctors recommend.

They further requested: “all those businesses that must work to produce or provide essential products or services, should implement work from a distance, as much as possible.”

Finally, they called on the businesses “that must work on site” to “more strictly” apply the preventive measures that they’ve been taking to protect their employees, suppliers and clientele.

Call to public employees and the self-employed

“The self-employed, should redouble all possible hygienic and preventive measures,” urged the Cosep statement.

Meanwhile, they asked the public employees “to protect themselves and apply these same measures for their safety and that of the people they serve.”

The business owners insisted that their call is aimed at “the entire population in general”, to remain at home, “not to go out unnecessarily”, and if they must go out, “to use face masks and apply the recommended measures of hygiene and social distancing.”

Call on the government

The business leaders asserted that all these actions will have “a limited impact if the government doesn’t assume its responsibility for the health and life of Nicaraguans.”

They called on them to immediately adopt the recommendations of the World Health Organization and the Pan-American Health Organization, among them the suspension of in-person classes. At the same time, they requested that parents “protect their children by not exposing them to infection.”

In the same way, they asked the government, “not to promote, but rather to prohibit large gatherings, establish safety protocols for public transport, free up the COVID-19 tests and provide truthful information on the advance of the pandemic.”