After today’s regular meeting of the Commandant’s Office, Prime Minister Pashinyan held a news briefing with Yerevan Mayor Hayk Marutyan and Head of the Food Safety Inspectorate Georgy Avetisyan.

The Prime Minister first advised that the Commandant’s Office will step up the strength of enforcement teams formed under the standing state of emergency in the Republic of Armenia. “We are going to toughen administrative control over the discipline of wearing masks. So far, this function has been performed by the police for purely administrative considerations. Now, the police force will be joined by employees of other government agencies, and each enforcement team will feature a police officer and a representative from another state agency,” Nikol Pashinyan said.

The Prime Minister further advised that starting from tomorrow all citizens walking or traveling without an identity document will be fined 10 thousand drams. “Starting from tomorrow, all citizens will be asked to carry an identity paper because enforcement groups faced problems in penalizing people for failure to wear a mask. The lack of an ID paper and failure to wear a mask will be deemed as standalone offences, each punishable by a 10,000-dram fine. The given measure will facilitate the enforcement of the mask requirement.” Nikol Pashinyan said. The Premier noted that the situation with COVID-19 continues to be tense in the country.

According to the Prime Minister, he had not infected anyone during the social contacts he had while he was sick. “June 14 was the fourteenth day since I tested positive. I can say that I did not infect anyone during all this time, because I wore a mask from the very first day of infection. I have talked to everyone and made sure that no one was diagnosed with COVID-19,” Nikol Pashinyan said and stressed that wearing masks prevents you from infecting others, even if you are a virus carrier.