On 25 May, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated that the businesses allowed to reopen by his government over the past month hold the majority of the blame for the accelerating spread of COVID-19 in the country. “The main reason for the rise in the number of cases is industrial enterprises,” he said in a video address. “More than 75% and even 80% of [new] cases are [from] industrial enterprises and the services sector,” he said. 

He accused those businesses of failing to observe social distancing and hygiene rules set by the government. Pashinyan added that the Armenian government would now enforce tougher penalties for such violations. “Those cafes, restaurants, bank branches, manufacturing enterprises or hairdresser salons which do not observe the safety rules will be harshly shut down,” he declared. 

In addition, Pashinyan emphasized that his findings were based on a mistaken assumption that Armenian citizens would maintain social distancing and self-isolation for each other. “Our assumption was that citizens would not adhere to the rules for the sake of the state, government and so on, but, first of all, for the sake of their friends and relatives. There is an opinion that we [placed too much trust in] this assumption, but now the question is: should we continue to express confidence or not? I want to say that even now I believe that the measure №1 should be individual responsibility,” he said.

He noted that the whole strategy during the state of emergency period was to notify citizens as much as possible about the seriousness of the situation and to make necessary preparations in the country’s health system. Later on, the government would remove restrictions and provide a number of conditions under which there would be a 100% guarantee of security.

Pashinyan noted that if people comply with three requirements: not touching the face without disinfecting hands, wearing masks wherever possible and not coming in contact with others without masks and talking without a mask while maintaining at least 1.5 meters between, 45% protection against infection will be guaranteed to them.

After Pashinyan’s statement, the activities of about 650 business entities and 46 food  facilities across Armenia's provinces have been temporarily suspended because of violations of state of emergency rules discovered during monitoring carried out by the Inspectorate for Health and Labor.

The number of COVID-19 cases in Armenia continue to rise steadily, with 289 new infection cases recorded in the past 24 hours, bringing the current tally  to 7 402 and 91 deaths.