Illustrative stock photo (source: TASR)
A person who tested positive for COVID-19 may leave home isolation to go shopping for essentials if they cannot get someone's help to do it.
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This stems from the new rules issued by the Public Health Authority on December 22.
COVID-positive people who leave home isolation for the necessary time must wear a FFP2 respirator and observe hand hygiene rules.
People who test positive but do not experience clinical symptoms can also participate at a funeral.
Another condition, besides an FFP2 respirator and hand hygiene, involves the keeping of a minimum 2-metre distance from others.
Hygienists penned self-tracing rules
Another novelty is self-tracing, implemented as of December 22.
The infected person should inform the people they were in close contact with in the past two days.
The home isolation of these contacts starts from the day they are contacted, and should last 10 days since the last contact with the positive person.
“They do not need to wait until they hear from the regional public health office during the epidemiological investigation,” said spokesperson for the authority, Daša Račková, as quoted by the TASR newswire.
If the people who have been in contact with a positive person have no COVID symptoms, a PCR test is not necessary, and their isolation is over on the tenth day since their last contact with a positive person, Račková added.
They will still be able to request a PCR test, Račková added, the soonest on the fifth day of the last contact with a positive person. Their quarantine will be over as soon as they receive their negative COVID test result.
These new rules are aimed at lowering the burden on regional public health authorities, as the pandemic is expected to peak in Slovakia in the coming weeks.
