Tuesday UN Meetings Switched To Virtual Format As Five COVID19 Cases Emerge - Source

UNITED NATIONS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 27th October, 2020) The Tuesday UN Security Council (UNSC) session will be held in online format amid reports of several coronavirus cases at the United Nations, a UNSC source told Sputnik.

"The session tomorrow will be held in virtual format," the source said on Monday.

Volkan Bozkir, president of the UN General Assembly's 75th session, said earlier on Monday that after information was received about several COVID-19 cases at the permanent mission of a member state, medical experts advised to cancel in person meetings at the UN headquarters on Tuesday.

"Following information from the Secretariat regarding five COVID infections at a Mission of a Member State, the advice of the Medical Unit is to cancel in-person meetings at UNHQ tomorrow, Tuesday 27 October, pending contact tracing.

Accordingly, after consulting the Main Committee Chairs, and in light of the need to safeguard public health, all in-person meetings of the Main Committees of the General Assembly tomorrow are cancelled," Bozkir said.

First Deputy Permanent Representative of Russia to the UN Dmitry Polyanskiy said in a statement that five people who contracted the coronavirus turned out to be employees of the permanent mission of a member of the UN Security Council.

According to Polyanskiy, all UNSC members had close interactions, although social distancing guidelines and other coronavirus precautionary measures had been observed.