(ANSA) - RIO DE JANEIRO, MARCH 23 - After ordering the closure of the beaches last weekend, the Municipality of Rio de Janeiro has decreed a new lockdown period between March 26 and April 4 to try to curb the advance of the coronavirus.
"These ten days are not to commemorate, but to show respect for life: this (Amazonian) variant impresses the youngest," said the mayor of Rio.
EduardoPaes.
Among the further restrictive measures, a curfew was decided between 11 pm and 5 am, the closure of schools, shops, bars and restaurants, as well as the suspension of the football championship.
Intensive care units in the Rio de Janeiro metropolis have achieved 96 percent employment, according to authorities.
"We have 670 people hospitalized in intensive care, a very worrying number. There have never been so many hospitalizations in one day," said City Secretary of Health, DanielSoranz.
The restrictions in Rio de Janeiro and in the satellite city of Niteroi do not find the consent of the governor of the state, Claudio Castro, who, in line with the President of the Republic, Jair Bolsonaro, is against the lockdown and would like to keep bars and restaurants open.
(HANDLE).