Government setting safety standards, instructions to reopen certain sectors

AMMAN — The two-week closure of schools, popular markets, restaurants and cafés is scheduled to end on Thursday.

The government’s closure decision came into effect on September 17 as a measure to combat the spread of COVID-19.

Mosques and churches were closed off as well.

Prime Minister and Minister of Defence Omar Razzaz announced that the government is setting safety standards and instructions to reopen places of worship and restaurants and cafes.

The instructions and standards mainly focus on physical distancing, maintaining hygiene and wearing face masks.

In regard to schools, the Education Ministry has three scenarios. The first being the return of kindergarten students up until the fourth grade, as well as 10th graders and secondary school students, while fifth to ninth graders would continue with online classes.

The second scenario is having only fifth to ninth graders return to school to only take basic subjects, reducing class time, the ministry’s Secretary General Najwa Qubeilat said.

Qubeilat noted that the third option allows the return in-class education for all students based on a shift- system.

She said parents will still have the option to send their children to school or have them learn remotely, regardless of the scenario implemented. 

During the past two weeks, coffee shops and restaurants were only allowed to offer delivery and takeaway services.

Education Minister Tayseer Nuaimi on September 14 said that all public, private, UNRWA and military schools and kindergartens will be closed for two weeks as of September 17.

However, he said the decision excludes Tawjihi (the General Secondary Education Certificate Examination) students and gives families the option to send their children in the first three grades to schools or to resort to remote education.

Following the enforcement of the decision, investors in tourism restaurants and Amman Chamber of Commerce (ACC) members called for cancelling the government’s decision to limit the services of restaurants to take-out and delivery only. 

"The decision includes around 12,000 facilities, and the damage affects not only owners and employees, but also suppliers," ACC President Khalil Hajj Tawfiq told The Jordan Times on September 19. 

At the time, Tawfiq said that many investors would not be able to continue investing as the closure would “harm” what is left of their investments, especially due to their struggle with comprehensive lockdowns and curfews imposed in the first months of the crisis since mid-March. 

However, in spite of various calls by the president and the members of the ACC, the decision remained in effect. 

The government decided to impose a comprehensive lockdown and curfew in Baqaa Camp and parts of New Zarqa area in Zarqa governorate as of Thursday at 6am, which means that students in those areas will continue learning remotely.

“It has been very difficult for me to use the Education Ministry’s platforms, and I am barely keeping up with my two daughters and my son, and it will be harder now that there is a lockdown imposed on our area,” Rania Shalabi, a resident in Zarqa, told The Jordan Times on Wednesday over the phone.

“I understand this is to keep us and our children safe, and while we were hoping that by the end of the two-week closure our children would return to in-class education, the recent surge in cases indicates that with lockdown or without, remote education might continue for this entire semester,” Mohammad Almasri, a parent told The Jordan Times over the phone.