A Curfew for Bella Vista and Santa Cruz Villages in the Banana Belt

With elections to be held next week Wednesday; government has disbanded the National Oversight Committee which had been functioning since the start of the pandemic in March. The last meeting of the N.O.C. was today, one of its final decisions was to support, in part, a request from the Banana Growers Association for the imposition of an eight p.m. to five a.m. curfew in villages in the Banana Belt where an outbreak of the coronavirus has been detected and can potentially spread to banana farms. A government release states that the B.G.A. fears that without some action from government, the transmission will spread in the villages and on the farms, forcing closures in an industry that remains an important foreign exchange earner. The B.G.A. had requested curfew in thirteen villages, but the N.O.C. recommended a fourteen-day curfew for the villages of Bella Vista and Santa Cruz. Additional protective protocols will be pursued, after consultation, by the Director of Health Services and the Ministry of Health team