Health minister: Lower virus rates encouraging, but too early to say

7 October 2020, 3:11 pm

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Health Minister Yuli Edelstein, in a briefing to reporters, says he’s encouraged by the new infection numbers, but stresses that it’s still too early to draw conclusions.

“We see the initial effect of the lockdown and the number of confirmed cases declining,” he says. “At the same time, I wouldn’t recommend jumping to the conclusion that it’s over, that we won and we’ll reopen the economy. It’s entirely obvious that we need a lengthy period of time to ensure that the situation is as we want it.”

“We won’t take steps [to ease the lockdown] just because a certain date has arrived. Today we have very slight, preliminary reasons for some sort of encouragement,” says Edelstein.