Children Younger than 7 Coming from Abroad Needn't Test for Coronavirus

Children Younger than 7 Coming from Abroad Needn't Test for Coronavirus

Bratislava, November 26 (TASR) – Children younger than seven don’t have to undergo mandatory testing for coronavirus when coming to Slovakia from abroad under a Public Health Authority’s decree replacing as of Thursday a previous rule that made children aged less than three exempt from the obligation.

When asymptomatic, mandatory self-isolation for children below the age of seven expires along with self-isolation of other members of the same household.

Exempt from mandatory self-isolation and testing will be people with permanent or temporary residence in Slovakia who are citizens of an EU-member country, a country of the European Economic Area or Switzerland and have demonstrably recovered from COVID-19 in the past three months.

Persons with permanent or temporary residence in Slovakia who wish to enter or leave the country for diagnostics or medical treatment and their close persons won’t be obliged any longer to ask for an exemption from the Health Ministry, if their stay in Slovakia doesn’t exceed 12 hours. Nevertheless, they must present an invitation from a doctor and subsequently a document proving that they received medical treatment. If their stay exceeds 12 hours, they have to ask for review of their request on https://cestujem.standardnepostupy.sk.

Exemptions will still be in place for people involved in the operation of critical infrastructure, with the Economy Ministry giving permits to energy and industry, and Transport Ministry providing exemptions for electronic communications.

Also exempt are players and staff members of sport teams who travel abroad for games of Tipos Extraliga, Ice Hockey League or MOL Liga.

Meanwhile, Greece has been dropped from the list of relatively safer countries, while Ireland and Singapore have been placed on the list.

“An exemption from mandatory self-isolation for those who present a negative PCR-test result will concern, apart from EU-member countries, also other countries of the European Economic Area, i.e. Britain, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, and Switzerland,” said Marek Elias from the Public Health Authority.