Coronavirus: More than 1 million SMS approvals sent over weekend

The government’s SMS service for outings granted more than one million such requests over the weekend, with shopping and exercise accounting for more than half of these, according to figures released by the deputy ministry of research on Monday.

Sunday was the busiest day with a total of 559,341 text messages approved. Of these, 144,790 were for shopping, 171,896 for exercise, 124,872 for other and 90,044 to visit people requiring assistance or to make a social visit.

Saturday saw 174,490 of the day’s total of 531,825 text messages approved to go shopping, with exercise falling in second place with 132,488. There were 111,055 approved requests under the ‘other’ category, and 24,809 for hairdressers, beauticians, and barbers.

Friday’s approved text messages stood at 401,832 of which 131,304 were for shopping, 82,018 for exercise and 89,848 for other.