We have to curtail a number of vital rights of Armenian citizens, but we do not do all this for political purposes. We do this to keep the situation manageable and, ultimately, to overcome the coronavirus. Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced this on Facebook livestream.

“Unfortunately, the National Assembly did not pass the legislative amendment that the government proposed in this regard; there were not enough votes in favor, but now we are looking for a way to submit the draft to the National Assembly again,” he added, in particular. “The purpose of this draft is as follows: When a citizen has a confirmed case [of coronavirus], we try to figure out where he was infected, or with whom he had contact. We isolate the people in these two categories to prevent further spread of the disease." Pashinyan assured that the people's personal information shall be used solely for this purpose.

He noted that they are taking this step with great discomfort, but they realize that further development of this coronavirus situation in Armenia could become much more unpredictable without the use of such measures. "The more the restrictions prolong, the problems—including economic and social—deepen that much more," he added, in particular. "And why are the [coronavirus] cases increasing [in Armenia]? They are increasing also because we do not keep the restrictions precise. We also have imported cases because communication is not 100% closed, freight transport is [still] taking place, with which some cases of infection are occurring, and those cases are being registered."