COVID-19: Extension of state of health emergency in Morocco until April 10, 2021

The Moroccan government Council, held in Rabat this Thursday March 04, has decided to extend the state of health emergency, that was scheduled to expire on March 10, until April 10, 2021.

The Council adopted the draft decree extending the state of health emergency throughout the national territory from Wednesday, March 10 at 6 p.m. to Saturday April 10 at 6 p.m.

The state of health emergency enables the government to make swift, necessary decisions to curb the spread of COVID-19.

The extension was decided as the current situation requires keeping the appropriate measures to stop the spread of COVID-19, while ensuring that the measures taken at the level of each region, prefecture or province, are adequate with the evolution of the epidemiological situation.

This is the twelfth time that Morocco is extending the state of health emergency since the measure was first adopted on March 19, 2020.

The state of emergency, which is not synonymous with lockdown, is a legal framework that allows the Moroccan government to promptly take exceptional measures against COVID-19. The measures include lockdowns on neighborhoods or cities, bans on travel, the closing of gathering places, and the deployment of military troops in cities if necessary.

Morocco has also extended the night curfew and other anti-coronavirus restrictive measures for two more weeks as of Tuesday, March 2 at 9 p.m.

Besides the night curfew, the measures include the closure of restaurants and shopping centers at 08 p.m. and maintenance of ban on public gatherings.

The extensions come although the number of daily COVID-19 cases has been dropping lately and although Morocco has launched a nation-wide immunization campaign that was praised by the international media and the World Health Organization as successful.

Morocco is actually among the “top 10 successful countries” in launching a national vaccination campaign, as put by the WHO, and overall, more than 94% of doses administered in Africa are in Morocco, which has so far inoculated 3.74 million people.

Morocco has recorded 484,753 COVID-19 cases to date, including 8,653 deaths and 470,425 recoveries.