CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt will allow wedding ceremonies and cultural events to be held in open-air venues from Sept. 21, after months of banning them in an attempt to contain the spread of the coronavirus, the cabinet said on Monday.
Open-air weddings would be allowed in tourist and hotel facilities that obtained health safety certificates, with a maximum of 300 invitees, it added in a statement.
These facilities would also be able to host meetings and conferences with not more than 150 participants, it said.
Cultural exhibitions, including book fairs, would be allowed in open-air venues with a maximum attendance of 50% of capacity, the statement said.
Funeral prayers could resume at mosques with outdoor yards, but not at normal daily prayers times, it added.
Egypt’s total recorded coronavirus cases hit 100,000 earlier this month, with a total death toll of more than 5,000. However, the number of daily infections and deaths has declined sharply during the last few weeks.
(Reporting by Moamen Said Ataallah; Writing by Mahmoud Mourad; Editing by Alex Richardson)
