Restrictions due to coronavirus will be introduced in Abkhazia from October 5

The President signed a decree on the introduction of restrictive measures based on the decision of the Coordination Headquarters for the Protection of the Population from Coronavirus Infection.

President Aslan Bzhania signed an order "On the establishment of separate measures to protect the health of the population of the Republic of Abkhazia from coronavirus-infection COVID-19"; the restrictions will come into force on 5 October, as reported by the president's website.

According to the order, from 5 October 2020 on the territory of the Republic of Abkhazia:

• It is prohibited to hold mass-sports-, entertainment-, amusement-, and exhibition-events inside premises. Exceptions are made for cultural institutions that are required to comply with the following requirements: employees of these institutions must use personal protective equipment; visitors to events must take seats in the halls two seats apart, and the premises must be disinfected daily.
• Weddings and other special events are also prohibited. Recommend the need to limit the number of persons participating in mourning and memorial events.
• Catering facilities were instructed to ensure compliance with the mandatory requirements for the arrangement of tables for serving citizens with a social distance of at least one and a half metres and the use of personal protective equipment by service personnel.
• The administrations of food-, agricultural- and clothing-markets in Sukhum and regions of the country have been instructed to carry out preventative disinfection on a daily basis, including in the adjacent territory. Sellers must also wear personal protective equipment.
• Local administrations are ordered to ensure daily preventative disinfection of the interiors of vehicles for public transport and the use of personal protective equipment by drivers.

In addition, by 15 October the Ministry of Health has been instructed:

• to identify medical institutions located in the city of Sukhum and districts of the Republic of Abkhazia, and to ensure the opening and functioning within them of isolation-rooms in order to accommodate persons infected with coronavirus;
• to complete the organisational-technical measures for the centralised supply of oxygen in the infection-ward of the Gudauta Central District Hospital.

The President instructed the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Abkhazia to provide funding:

• for the additional costs to increase the staffing of the State Sanitary and Epidemiological Service of the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Abkhazia to eight people;
• for the measures for the acquisition by the State Sanitary and Epidemiological Service of the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Abkhazia of specialised equipment and consumables necessary to increase the number of medical studies and tests to detect coronavirus-infection;
• for the organisational-technical measures for the centralised supply of oxygen in the infectious ward of the Gudauta Central District Hospital.

The Ministry of Education and Language Policy has been instructed, together with local administrations, constantly to provide pre-school and general education institutions with personal protective equipment (medical masks and medical gloves), disinfectants, and thermometers.

The Ministry of Health of the Republic of Abkhazia is obliged to inform the population about measures to prevent influenza and acute respiratory viral infections.

According to the headquarters for protecting the population from coronavirus, as of 21 September, 995 cases of COVID-19 had been recorded in Abkhazia since the beginning of the pandemic. 285 people had recovered and 7 died.