ArmInfo.The gross turnover of the restaurant business in Armenia fell by 20%. Armenian Minister of Economy Vahan Kerobyan told journalists about this during a briefing after the government meeting, commenting on the impact of COVID restrictions in the catering sector.
As he noted, the figures announced by the minister are based on data received over several days. At the same time, Vahan Kerobyan noted that sales of a number of companies in the sphere decreased slightly due to their client base. However, at the same time, there are institutions that have suffered significantly.
Kerobyan also caused the reduction in the number of restaurants visitors, and, accordingly, the turnover, to the accelerated spread of the coronavirus disease by the strain. "We are closely monitoring the situation and are in touch with both economic entities and our colleagues from the Ministry of Health," he said.
Nevertheless, the minister considers the decision to impose restrictions on unvaccinated citizens due to the aggressive spread of "omicron" to be correct. According to him, the restrictions will certainly affect the economy, however, in this context, Kerobyan stressed that if the situation with the coronavirus gets out of control, this will affect not only the economy, but also the health and life of people.
From January 22, restrictions for citizens who were not vaccinated against coronavirus came into force. According to the decision of the Ministry of Health of the country, visiting catering facilities, hotels, museums, theaters, cinemas and other cultural events, unvaccinated citizens must provide a negative PCR test for coronavirus at the entrance (no later than 72 hours), or the result of an express antigen test ( made no later than 24 hours), or the QR code of the vaccination certificate.
These requirements will not apply to persons under the age of 18, pregnant women, citizens with contraindications, or persons who have been ill with coronavirus in the last 90 days. As of January 24 this year, a total of 1,825,382 people received the coronavirus vaccine in the country, of which 999,891 citizens were vaccinated with the first component, and, accordingly, with the second - 819,841. The number of citizens who received a booster dose reached 5,650 as of the reporting date.
It should be reminded that today anti-COVID preparations of Russian production (Sputnik V), British-Swedish (AstraZeneca) and Chinese (Coronavac and Sinopharm) and Spikevax produced by the American Moderna company are available in Armenia without any restrictions. In addition, on December 23, at a regular meeting, the Armenian government allocated 1.2 billion drams (about $ 2.4 million) to the Ministry of Health for the purchase of 200,000 doses of Pfizer's anti-COVID vaccine.
