Jordan Residents Now Free To Leave 'lockdown' Zone

Residents who've tested negative for Covid-19 can now leave and re-enter the locked down area of Jordan provided they wear an official wristband, the Home Affairs Secretary Caspar Tsui said in a press conference on Sunday evening.

Wrapping up the two-day operation, Tsui said authorities hoped to lift all restrictions as soon as midnight. Health authorities had closed off the area on Saturday morning and ordered all residents to take coronavirus tests. They said restrictions would be lifted only when all test results were in.

Tsui said officials had contacted 70 people who didn't get tested on Saturday after visiting some 3,600 flats, with no one answering the door in around 470 of them.

Tsui said they would make more attempts to find out whether anyone actually lives in those homes, noting that some may be vacant or their residents may already be in quarantine.

Health Secretary Sophia Chan said she wouldn't rule out ordering a second round of compulsory tests as she hailed the SAR's first lockdown as effective.

"I think the compulsory testing and also the testing within an area with the restriction of movement is effective to identify and isolate these cases. Also the close contacts will be quarantined. So I think it's an effective method," she said.

Thirteen of the more than 7,000 people who were tested in the area were preliminary positive.

Chan also said the government wouldn't rule out putting other districts into lockdown, depending on the number of cases, and environmental factors as well as supplementary information from sewage samples.