Lockdown in Pará State: First Day Sees Fines Imposed on Individuals and Businesses

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The first day of lockdown in Pará was marked by 60 fines -54 for individuals and six for commercial establishments that did not qualify as an essential service – the State Security Secretariat reported. Belém was the municipality with the most occurrences (37 fines).

The state decree 729/2020, which applies to the capital of Pará and nine other municipalities in the interior of the state, became effective last Thursday, May 7th. The first three days were for educational measures.

The decree provides for the exclusive operation of essential services, such as health and food services. Fines are R$150 for individuals and may be as high as R$50,000 for companies.

Five people were fined by the Civil Police – four for not wearing a mask and one for drinking alcohol in an unauthorized area. All of them signed an Incident Report and were released.

After the capital, the municipalities recording the most violations were Breves, with 15 occurrences, and Ananindeua, a neighboring municipality of the capital, with six.

There were inspections on Sunday, with the installation of 70 roadblocks in the main traffic points of the capital, the metropolitan region and the interior of the state, involving over 10,000 security agents on the first day of the strictest measures.

The Secretary of Public Safety, Ualame Machado, stressed that the goal of roadblocks was to ensure that the state reaches an isolation rate of 70 percent. “Every day we can change the location of roadblocks, traffic operations and approaches so that we can overcome this crisis,” he warned.

The latest data on social isolation rates in Pará, from Saturday, May 9th, places the state in third position in the Brazilian ranking, at 49.15 percent, behind Ceará, 50.76 percent, and Amapá, with 50.71 percent.

These rates are not yet adequate to contain the spread of the disease, which has already infected 7,256 people and killed 652 in Pará, according to data from the federal Ministry of Health released yesterday.

Source: UOL