The Min­istry of Health has con­firmed the re­vised COVID-19 reg­u­la­tions gov­ern­ing the light­ing of fires for re­li­gious pur­pos­es at bod­ies of wa­ter—beach­es, rivers, streams, ponds, and springs, etc.—and is urg­ing the pub­lic to com­ply with the reg­u­la­tions.

The Min­istry notes that these bod­ies of wa­ter will be open for use by the re­li­gious com­mu­ni­ty be­tween the hours of 5 am and 2 pm.

De­tails of the Min­istry’s state­ment fol­low…

Re­li­gious or ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal Or­gan­i­sa­tions and their mem­bers will be per­mit­ted to light fires for re­li­gious pur­pos­es at beach­es, rivers, streams, ponds, springs and sim­i­lar bod­ies of wa­ter, pur­suant to Reg­u­la­tion 4(3) of the Pub­lic Health [2019 Nov­el Coro­n­avirus (2019-n CoV)] Reg­u­la­tions, 2022.

Pur­suant to Reg­u­la­tion 4(3) of the Pub­lic Health [2019 Nov­el Coro­n­avirus (2019-n CoV)] Reg­u­la­tions, 2022, with ef­fect from Jan­u­ary 21, 2022, the Min­is­ter of Health here­by au­tho­ris­es re­li­gious or ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal or­gan­i­sa­tions and their mem­bers to light fires for re­li­gious pur­pos­es at beach­es, rivers, streams, ponds, springs and sim­i­lar bod­ies of wa­ter.

Re­li­gious or ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal or­gan­i­sa­tions and their mem­bers are re­mind­ed that pur­suant to Reg­u­la­tion 4(2) of the Pub­lic Health [2019 Nov­el Coro­n­avirus (2019-n CoV)] Reg­u­la­tions, 2022, beach­es, rivers, streams, ponds, springs and sim­i­lar bod­ies of wa­ter, shall be open be­tween the hours of 5.00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.

Fur­ther, all per­sons are ad­vised to com­ply strict­ly with the (oth­er) le­gal re­quire­ments of the Pub­lic Health [2019 Nov­el Coro­n­avirus (2019-nCoV)] Reg­u­la­tions, 2022 and the pub­lic health guide­lines.

The Min­istry of Health will con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor this de­vel­op­ment and take steps to safe­guard the health of the pop­u­la­tion.