Šimonytė: from tomorrow, travel restrictions in all municipalities on the ring road will no longer be possible

“Today, the government has decided to extend the quarantine until the end of March, but the decision on the movement of power between the country’s municipalities until mid-March. And as of tomorrow, travel restrictions within the municipalities of the ring road will no longer be possible, for everyone, not just for the little ones, ”said the Prime Minister about the latest decisions.

Changes were also adopted in the rules for the use of masks.

The prime minister admitted that she expected to make different decisions.

“It just came to our attention then. Therefore, it is proposed to substantially expand the scope of the tests to larger groups. We expected this from the municipalities, but we saw that the result was not very good, the scope of the tests did not increase”, He said.

The prime minister said that after March 15, the government would probably no longer be willing to extend movement restrictions across the country.

“In any case, I do not know, unless the situation worsens very dramatically, the government will no longer decide to continue with the restriction that has been in effect for the last months after March 15. I am very confident that we will be able to offer other restrictions if they are necessary to prevent movements to and from those municipalities where the epidemiological situation will be significantly worse than in the rest of Lithuania, ”said the Prime Minister.

Will there be a return to extremely strict restrictions?

The prime minister said she could not rule out any scenario, not even the worst – that is, another extremely tight shutdown.

“People are tired, they adhere to those restrictions in various ways, where resentment manifests itself, I really thank the Lithuanian people for their patience. I understand, as it sometimes seems, that it is unclear what to expect with those restrictions, but now we must agree that we are waiting for our seniors to be vaccinated, and then we can take on more responsibilities.

As a result of our actions, there will be less risk for the most vulnerable, ”I. Šimonytė said at a press conference on Wednesday.

He said the current increase in cases should not be linked to restrictions on certain companies published last Monday.

“I would not link this increase, not a decrease, because I don’t have enough data to link it to specific versions. But that the mobility of people has increased, that is a fact.

On the other hand, as we keep moving forward and vaccinate more and more people, those restrictions will have to change and be modified in some way. I really can’t rule out the possibility that it’s not necessarily because of this, or maybe because someone who arrives gets infected with some kind of rapidly spreading mutation. (…) After all, the reasons can be many and varied, it can happen. But I would very much like to believe that there will be no need to return to the stricter restrictions, ”said the Prime Minister.

The use of medical masks and respirators is only a recommendation.

The government decided on Wednesday to change the order of wearing masks in public spaces. If there are no people within 2 meters distance, you can be in the open space without masks. Although experts suggested abandoning non-medical masks, this proposal was not mentioned in the quarantine change document approved by the Cabinet of Ministers.

The Prime Minister said that more discussions were needed to consider this issue. Speaking about the use of panels, I. Šimonytė hinted that residents see such an example on television screens.

“Panels are not a good security tool, people use them very often because we see colleagues using them on television,” he said.

The Prime Minister stated that the population is advised to wear only medical masks and respirators.

“I think a blanket call to wear medical masks and respirators as much as possible would be more appropriate here. When serving people, the operations manager will assess whether additional adjustments are needed there. But to regulate the protection of people to such a small detail … We should not start writing in the resolution how they should be, who should change them for how long. The recommendation stands, but we have decided not to make any special tightening, ”said the Prime Minister.

He said that the order of wearing the masks will change starting tomorrow.

Will evaluate the experiment at the Vilnius school

Speaking about the education sector, I. Šimonytė noted that the improving situation trends did not last as expected.

“With primary education, the situation is a bit more complicated, we would like to return the children to school as soon as possible, but you can see for yourself that many cases are being detected in the existing educational institutions, the kindergartens. It is obvious that the introduction of primary schools will increase that risk, ”said the Prime Minister.

According to her, this is also demonstrated by the practice of other countries.

“Now it is important for us to make sure that the algorithm, which we developed in cooperation with the Vilnius City Municipality and tested it in a school, works. If it works, then we can talk about opening much safer schools,” explained I. Šimonytė.

According to her, the first results of the experiment, which is being carried out in Vilnius Prince Gediminas Progymnasium, will be discussed early next week. The experiment itself will run until March 7.

“We will see what solutions and what sequence can be implemented if, after completing the experiment, we can see that we have achieved everything we set out to do and that everything works perfectly, perhaps what is needed to make this method more available, “he added. Prime Minister.

I. Šimonytė also pointed out that this test method was used in some companies.

“This is likely to be one of the most important solutions to increase testing in large teams,” added the prime minister.