Public employees return to teleworking due to COVID-19 outbreak in Honduras

The Honduran government ordered public employees to work remotely Thursday and Friday due to an outbreak of Covid-19 and other respiratory illnesses that have killed more than 200 people this year, the Interior Ministry said.

“All central government bodies and decentralized institutions (…) were required to adopt teleworking this Thursday and Friday,” the ministry said in a statement.

The government argued that these are “recommendations from the Ministry of Health” because there is “an accelerated and sustained increase in highly contagious respiratory diseases,” such as “COVID-19, respiratory syncytial virus, influenza and the common cold.”

The head of Epidemiological Surveillance at the Ministry of Health, Lorenzo Pavón, told local press that 216 people have died this year from respiratory infections, five of them from Covid-19, which represents "a very considerable mortality rate."

The government had recommended that the population “resume the use of masks, wash their hands frequently or use disinfectants” and also “avoid crowds in small spaces”, as in 2020 and 2021 during the coronavirus pandemic.

Hours later, the Ministry of Health declared in a statement that "the use of masks is mandatory" in airports, border crossings, cinemas, gyms, shopping malls, supermarkets, churches, all health units, educational centers and "wherever physical distancing of 1.5 meters cannot be maintained."

Virtual work has not been extended to private companies.

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