Naypyitaw — Myanmar military’s Naypyitaw Command chief, Major General Myint Maw, has said a transit center has been prepared to accommodate up to 15,000 people under COVID-19 quarantine.
“If there is a need for the public to quarantine, we have prepared for around 15,000 people at No. 3 Transit Center. We will provide all the necessities, including meals,” the general told reporters in Pyinmana Township on Wednesday.
As the Ministry of Health and Sports provides health care, the Tatmadaw [military] is focusing on prevention, raising public coronavirus awareness and making preparations for an emergency.
“Like public-spirited organizations and members of the public who are doing what they can, the Tatmadaw is working to help the people,” said Maj-Gen Myint Maw.
On Wednesday, a military transit center in Yangon, which had been converted for quarantine, was put into service and received 53 civilians, according to military spokesman Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun.
“We started to receive people for quarantine in Yangon. The medical team at Yangon Command is taking responsibility to provide meals and health care for them,” he said.
The Office of the Commander-in-Chief of the Defense Services said the transit center in Yangon could care for 2,000 people under quarantine and more than 90 returnees from Thailand and China had arrived by Wednesday.
No COVID-19 cases had been reported to the Tatmadaw, but military personnel and their relatives who returned from overseas – totalling 43 people – are being put in quarantine, he said.
The government on Monday formed a COVID-19 Control and Emergency Response Committee led by military-appointed First Vice President U Myint Swe and including ministers from the military-controlled defense, border affairs and home affairs ministries. It also includes the civilian ministers of labor, immigration and population, religious affairs and culture, transport and communications, and social welfare, relief and resettlement.
Nearly 700 people are being kept in quarantine in Naypyitaw’s hospitals and the Naypyitaw Development Committee Guesthouse.
Elsewhere in Myanmar, around 560 people are in quarantine with 16 confirmed cases and one death, the health ministry reported on Tuesday. Worldwide there had been over 940,000 confirmed cases and more than 47,000 deaths by Thursday.
Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko
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