YEREVAN. – Zhoghovurd daily of the Republic of Armenia (RA) writes: According to the order of the RA minister of health, as January 22, customers of public catering facilities, hotel facilities and gyms, visitors of libraries and museums, spectators of theater, concert, cinema, and organizations carrying out other cultural activities will enter only if they submit either a certificate confirming the negative [coronavirus] result of a PCR test of a maximum of 72 hours or a 24-hour bulletin confirming a negative test result.

Of course, there are restrictions by the decision made, and this, for example, does not apply to people under 18. In case of submitting an identification document, pregnant women, those who have absolutely documented contraindications, university students may not submit either a test or a negative PCR test result, which means that a contradiction comes about in the case of university students.

The thing is that the decision that was declared unconstitutional with respect to having a mandatory vaccination [against the coronavirus] or a negative coronavirus test result every 14 days is in force from October 1 of the previous year, but the university students, by going to university for classes, may not be vaccinated; they are an exception. It turns out [that] in universities, where students’ contact with each other is more, for example, than in the case of eating with three people at a public catering establishment, university students may not take a [coronavirus] test or be vaccinated [against it], whereas the risk of contracting it does not reduce.

It is as a result of the use of such illogical, uncontrolled tools that the vaccination rate in Armenia remains low.