Malawi opens borders to travelers, lifts curfew to midnight as coronavirus numbers fall

By Moses Michael Phiri

LILONGWE, Malawi (AA) - Malawi opened its borders to travelers Friday after lowering its coronavirus status from level two to level one.

Co-chair of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 and Minister of Health Khumbize Kandodo Chiponda told reporters that the number of deaths and cases has significantly declined while there has been an uptick in vaccines.

"This means Malawi can now receive visitors from any country around the world as we have removed all the restrictions," said Chiponda.

She said the number of people contracting the disease continues to dwindle in the country and neighboring countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

To open up the economy, curfew has been lifted to midnight, limitations on office and public transport have also been lifted to full capacity.

She said the number of people attending public events has gone from 250 to 500 indoors and 2,000 outdoors.

"On vaccination, we have hit the 1 million mark, with a total of 1,092,540 vaccine doses administered in the country and cumulatively, 503,916 people are now fully vaccinated," said Chiponda.

Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Health Charles Mwansambo said the easing of restrictions is good news for the country and attributed the decline in cases to the collaborative efforts of all Malawians.

"The easing of the restrictions should not cause us to relax as the risk of the virus spreading among us remains high as long as most Malawians are still not vaccinated.

"Let us work hard collectively to ensure that we reduce the new confirmed cases further, and get our social and economic lives back to normal," he said.

Malawi recorded 61,648 cases with 56,208 recoveries, including 2,287 deaths, as of Friday.