Morocco Faces Uncertainty as COVID-19 Cases Surge Ahead of Planned Lockdown End

Since April 29, the number of infections has been on the rise in the kingdom. From 69 cases on April 29, the figures have risen again on April 30 (102), May 1 (146), May 2 (160), May 3 (174), May 4 (150), May 5 (166), May 6 (189), May 7 (140), May 8 (163), May 9 (199), May 10 (153) to stand at 218 this Monday, May 11; which now brings the total number of confirmed positive cases to 6281.

At this rate, it will be difficult for the country to emerge from the confinement imposed by the authorities to curb the spread of covid-19 in the kingdom. On Monday, the director of the Department of Epidemiology and Disease Control at the Ministry of Health also stressed that "if preventive measures and barrier gestures are not adopted against the virus, we will not be able to stop the virus in the shortest possible time."

This situation could jeopardize the deconfinement process. Especially since three necessary conditions are required to initiate deconfinement: stability of the epidemiological situation, downward trend in new cases of contamination and inflection of the virus propagation indicator (R0) below the value of 1.