Egils Levits and Ilze Viņķele discussed plans of the ministry regarding further population testing and predictions of Minister Viņķele on when and how current restrictions could be gradually loosened.
‘To avoid possible resurgence of Covid-19, we all will have to continue to be cautious after the lifting of the state of emergency, at work and in our social interactions. Our collective safety will depend on specific practical steps that may be different depending on the sector or circumstance. Innovation is key here. As much as smooth cooperation across sectors and departments, and their individual contribution,’ underlined President Egils Levits when talking about the need to start planning the post-crisis working and social life arrangements already now to make sure everyone is ready for gradual easing of lockdown measures.
President Levits and Minister Viņķele also talked about the possible use of mobile virus-tracking and containment applications in Latvia. Latvia and a number of other European Union member states are currently working on the development of such software, although Egils Levits stressed the importance of ensuring a healthy balance between the efficiency of the application and protection of private data to meet the appropriate standards of democracy when the software becomes available.