Rapid coronavirus tests to be done in private labs as well. Crisis HQ adopts seven measures

Photo: Tanjug/AP

At today's meeting of the Crisis HQ set up to combat coronavirus, a decision was made to allow private laboratories to, going forward, also perform quick tests for COVID 19, Telegraf.rs has learned.

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"Registered private laboratories will also be able to do rapid tests, with consent and certificate of the Ministry of Health," our source has said.

Another decision was made regarding testing, that it will be done on personal request by the laboratory in Batajnica, which will have a period of 48 hours to issue the result.

At today's session, the HQ members also introduced mandatory wearing of masks in city and intercity public transport vehicles. It is recommended that they be worn and become to all intents and purposes obligatory when going to banks, post offices, any public institution...

The government of Serbia confirmed the decision of the Crisis HQ that starting today, it is obligatory to use protective masks in urban and intercity transport, and that, as far as closed spaces are concerned, all citizens are recommended to wear masks in all such spaces.

Photo: ATA Images

3 square meters per person indoors

The fourth measure that has been adopted concerns indoor areas. The number of people who can be in an indoor space at the same time is not limited, instead the limitation relates to square footage per person, so the decision has been made that each person must have 3 square meters. This means that if the indoor space is 300 square meters, up to 100 people can be inside it at one time.

The fifth decision concerns visits to hospitals, which, according to our sources, will be completely banned, although realistically, that ban has never been lifted.

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The sixth decision defines the behavior during visits to nursing homes.

"Visits will be conducted under certain conditions. They can last a maximum of 15 minutes, distance must be maintained, everyone who comes to visit will have to wear a mask, gloves and disinfect themselves," our interlocutor said.

Outdoors, physical distance has been increased from one meter to a meter and a half. And as we learned, there was a bit of controversy about this measure, because some HQ members thought it should have been 2 meters.

(LJ. Racic - lj.racic@telegraf.rs)