Marruecos anuncia la preparación para empezar a vivir con la COVID-19

Morocco is ready to start living with the coronavirus. After a period in which the country closed all its borders to prevent the rapid spread of the virus, which had some negative effects, the inter-ministerial commission in charge of the matter, made up of the Ministers of the Interior, Foreign Affairs, Transport, Health and Social Protection, is implementing a new road map with several points to begin to improve the situation in the Alawi country. 

According to the daily Al Ahdath Al Maghribia, the Moroccan government is ready to announce the measures to its citizens and to impose the measures that are being drawn up. Therefore, the virus itself, as well as the variants that will emerge over time, will start to be considered as an endemic disease. COVID-19 will become part of the seasonal influenza group. But, according to the authorities, this will be done when it is possible to have the largest possible group of the population immunised and vaccinated, to avoid any problems as when the virus first broke out in the world.

For this, vaccination campaigns are necessary and the head of government, Aziz Akhannouch, is developing and planning meetings with the executive councils to encourage Moroccans to take the decision to get vaccinated for the good of all. According to the Scientific and Technical Committee, getting the country's largest population inoculated "will allow Morocco to live with the virus".

The health and public authorities say they intend to be firm with the inoculation of the population, noting that more severe measures will be taken against those who do not want to be vaccinated. The Committee assures that it is necessary for all groups of the Moroccan population to be included in the plan, which is why a vaccination protocol will be followed, starting with those most vulnerable to having more complications when suffering from the disease, then active people and, finally, the remaining population.

Today, 73.4 % of the population in the Alawi country has been vaccinated, with 23,20,517 million people receiving both doses and the full course. Meanwhile, 78.3 % of the total population, some 24,774,356 people, have only one dose. It should be noted that the number of inhabitants in Morocco is 31 million, so the data reflect a good campaign that only needs to be intensified further.

The decision will allow the Kingdom to return to the normality lost after the last two years. According to the newspaper that has had access to this information, the plan that will make the situation possible will begin in March. According to sources close to the Committee, the project will be diversified in several points.

The first of these will be to definitively lift the state of health emergency. As of 30 November 2021, the law was re-imposed in order to prevent havoc following the appearance of Omicron on the world stage, which led to the closure of borders until a few days ago, when this restriction was lifted. 

From now on, the second point of the roadmap is to address the issue of entry and exit of citizens and foreign visitors to and from the country. For this, a travel authorisation has been developed, which is a COVID passport to ensure that they have passed the disease or have the required doses of the vaccine.

After these first two points have been established and their effectiveness confirmed, all restrictions preventing large gatherings of people in public and private places will be lifted. Following this, the Moroccan government will stop issuing coronavirus-related news, as it does on a daily basis, about the number of confirmed cases, number of deaths, admissions to intensive care units due to the virus, people vaccinated, and so on. 

Finally, and with the possibility of occurring in the near future if all goes according to plan, it will remain to learn to live with the virus and begin to normalise it like any other disease.