MUSCAT: Citizens and residents in Oman returned to work on Sunday following the long 10-day Eid Al Adha holidays.

With the lockdown between governorates were imposed and movement ban in the evening in the wake of coronavirus outbreak, most of the people preferred to stay home with their loved ones during the holidays.

“Staying home is safer than venturing out during holidays. I preferred to stay with my family and spend some valuable time with them,” said a government employee Mohammed Al Maamari.

Oman closed all governorates from July 31 to August 8, while the Supreme Committee extended the movement ban with revised timing from 9pm to 5am until August 15.

During the Eid Al Adha holidays, ROP stepped up monitoring to prevent gatherings as part of its efforts aimed at reducing the coronavirus cases.

As business is back to normal, people are cautious over the precautions they would need to take to stop the spread of COVID-19. “I was working from home even before the Eid holidays but my company has sent an email asking me to work from the office itself. While I am excited to meet my colleagues at work after a month, I am a bit cautious too. We are now living in the mask age,” said Ramesh Menon, a marketing executive based in Muscat.

Oman has managed to reduce the spread of the virus over the last two weeks, thanks to the movement ban that is still in place. While the country reported 81,357 coronavirus cases, nearly 74,000 patients have recovered.