Border checks (source: SME)
The Constitutional Court has corrected its decision from earlier this week that suspended some of the rules for crossing Slovakia's borders.
The previous decision of the court stated that it suspend paragraph 9 in the Public Health Authority ordinance governing the regime at the border crossings as of July 14. This meant that the exemptions for cross-border workers and for people aged 12-18 would need to be changed along with the exemption for people who have received only one dose of a double-dose Covid-19 vaccine before entering Slovakia.
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The court has now corrected its decision and announced it will only suspend one section of the said paragraph - the exemption for partly vaccinated people.
With a previous suspension of a similar exemption, the Constitutional Court judges referred to scientific studies, showing that a person does not have enough antibodies right after receiving the first vaccine dose to protect them from infection or from spreading the virus.
No changes
In practice, this means that the rules for crossing the borders remain unchanged until the decision becomes effective, i.e. until it is published in the Collection of Laws. This is likely to take days.
However, the rules will eventually change anyway since the transition period for the partly vaccinated as determined by the ordinance expires on August 2 at 6:00 in the morning.
The rules
Under the currently valid ordinance, the vaccinated do not need to self-isolate after they enter the country. The only requirement for them is to fill out the online eHranica form before their arrival. The registration is valid for repeated entry for vaccinated people for six months.
The unvaccinated need to go into self-isolation for at least five days before they can take a PCR test. Once they receive a negative result, they are free to end their self-isolation.
Unvaccinated cross-border workers need to fill in the eHranica form just once; the registration is valid until September 1. They do not need to self-isolate if they have an employment confirmation and a negative PCR test result no older than seven days.
Unvaccinated teenagers (12-18 years) need to fill in the eHranica form just once; the registration is valid until August 9. They must follow the self-isolation rules valid for the adults they live with. After August 9, the same rules valid for adults in general apply to teenagers.
