COVID-19 pandemic in Ethiopia

[3] The national government, led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, declared a five-month state of emergency in April 2020 but has allowed economic activities to continue during the public health crisis.

[4] On 12 January 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that a novel coronavirus was the cause of a respiratory illness in a cluster of people in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China, which was reported to the WHO on 31 December 2019.

[9][7] Model-based simulations for Ethiopia indicate that the 95% confidence interval for the time-varying reproduction number R t has fluctuated around 0.8 since August 2021.

On 16 March 2020, the office of the Prime Minister announced that schools, sporting events, and public gatherings shall be suspended for 15 days.

[111] On 25 March 2020, 4,011 prisoners were granted pardon by the Ethiopian President Sahle-Work Zewde in an effort to prevent the coronavirus spread.

The pardon applies only to prisoners convicted of minor crimes who are serving sentences of up to three years and those who are about to be released.

[116] On 8 April 2020, the Council of Ministers declared a five-month long state of emergency in response to the growing number of coronavirus cases.

[120] On 25 March 2020, the Amhara regional government ordered civil servants that are at high risk to work from home.

Looting of the means of survival and the military fighting itself led to emergency conditions of acute food insecurity and difficulties in prioritising anti-pandemic measures.

An OCHA report suggested that "massive community transmission of the pandemic" could have started taking place in Tigray Region, with big movements of people as a contributing factor.