Costa Rica to close non-essential businesses next week over COVID-19

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FILE PHOTO: An employee cleans a restaurant chair in a hotel, as Costa Rica tourism industry braces for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Heredia, Costa Rica March 18, 2020. Picture taken March 18,2020. REUTERS/Juan Carlos Ulate

SAN JOSE (Reuters) – Costa Rica will for the next week close non-essential businesses, including restaurants and bars, across the center of the country due to a sharp increase in new cases of COVID-19 and hospitalizations, the government said on Thursday.

From May 3-9, restaurants, bars, department stores, beauty salons, gyms and churches must close in 45 municipalities in central Costa Rica, where almost half the population lives and over two-thirds of new cases have been registered.

โ€œWe are in an unprecedented situation, and many people are going to die,โ€ Health Minister Daniel Salas said after announcing 2,781 new daily infections, a record number. โ€œThere are already waiting lists to enter intensive care.โ€

The government will also impose travel restrictions during the week.

Costa Rica has so far reported almost 249,000 cases of COVID-19 and some 3,200 fatalities.

Some 10.5% of the population had been vaccinated as of Thursday, most of them over the age of 58, official data show.

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