4:30 p.m.
During a press conference, Hakob Avakyan, Head of Armenia’s Health and Labor Inspectorate, said that, since the Special Commission established restriction of free movement and business activity on March 24, the Inspectorate has monitored 257 organizations/businesses and their branches that were allowed to operate under the State of Emergency rules.
Avakyan said that, when violations of procedure are observed, the Inspectorate reports to the Special Commission and the enterprise is subsequently shut down for six hours as a penalty. Upon reopening, the enterprise is monitored once again to make sure that the previous violations have been corrected. According to Avakyan, 38 enterprises (including their branches) were mandated to stop operations for six hours. Avakyan said the aim is not to fine the enterprises but to make sure the rules set by the Special Commission are followed.
In businesses where employees have direct contact with customers, it is mandatory that the employees wear masks and gloves and have their temperature checked twice over the duration of their shifts. Additional sanitary measures include having running water for employees to regularly wash their hands and a separate changing room. Avakyan said the facility is required to keep a log of when the temperature of each employee was checked and what the employee’s temperature was at the given time. Supermarkets and shops are also required to keep a log of when their cleaning staff last disinfected the shopping carts and baskets. To check this, Avakyan said their inspectors wait to see if the basket used by one customer is disinfected before it is available again to another. “In this sense, monitoring is possible for us, but to exactly know how many times during the day the face masks and the gloves are changed is more difficult. We can register violations during our monitoring but not throughout the day,” Avakyan said, noting that complaints filed by citizens through their hotline were very useful; they often schedule their daily checkups based on reports from citizens.
Other than monitoring, the Inspectorate also makes sure the businesses are aware of the rules and distribute printed material, which Avakyan says should be put up in a visible place in the facility so that employees see it as well: “It is more effective when the employees are well-informed of the rules and can also demand that their employer abide by them.”
Avakyan said that prior to the Special Commission’s decision to stop all public transportation, the Inspectorate also monitored the disinfection process in public transportation vehicles. 64 organizations were monitored; violations were registered at two of them.
Since January 24, Armenia’s seven border checkpoints (including Zvartnots International Airport) have been under strengthened surveillance. At the time, people arriving from countries flagged as risk zones were required to fill out forms and were checked for fevers and other symptoms. Since March 24, 122 people arriving in Armenia have been hospitalized directly from the seven border checkpoints; 24,172 people have filled out forms. Since March 19, besides these forms, new arrivals were also required to hand in self-isolation notices. Currently, passengers arriving from 42 countries considered risk zones are obligated to give self-isolation notices. Since March 19, 11,895 people have received self-isolation notices; their information has been shared with the Ministry of Health, the police force and the Special Commission’s task force dealing with issues of self isolation. The Inspectorate has set up a hotline (8107) for people to report violations.
Avakyan said that the flow of passengers coming into the country through the airport has decreased considerably. Armenia had no incoming flights on April 2. According to Avakyan, under these circumstances, they have been focusing their attention on the Bagratashen border checkpoint with Georgia. Avakyan said 186 people came into Armenia through Bagratashen on April 2, including cargo truck drivers (some of them foreign nationals). A number of the 186 people have shown symptoms of the virus and have been immediately hospitalized.
Two employees of the Inspectorate have tested positive for COVID-19. One has already been transferred from the hospital to a hotel for self-isolation; 17 employees are in quarantine, 14 employees are in self-isolation. Six employees serving at border checkpoints and two from the Yerevan branch have been tested for COVID-19; all eight tests have come back negative.
