Quarantine imposed on arrivals from areas with Omicron Covid variant
Ljubljana, 27 November - Travellers arriving in Slovenia from areas with the new coronavirus variant that the WHO has declared to be of concern face mandatory quarantine on arriving in Slovenia starting from Saturday under a decision taken by the government last night. Entry is banned to foreigners without a residence permit in Slovenia arriving from those areas.
Gruškovje
Slovenia imposes quarantine on arrivals from six countries in south Africa over the new coronavirus variant.
Photo: Nebojša Tejić/STA
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The list of areas and countries with the new variant B.1.1.529, named Omicron by the World Health Organisation (WHO), is being published by the National Institute of Public Health (NIJZ). Those are currently South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia and Zimbabwe.
Under the new government regulation, a 10-day quarantine will be imposed on arrivals residing in those countries or areas or visiting those countries or areas in the past 14 days before entering Slovenia.
The quarantine cannot be ended early and on the 11th day the quarantined persons need to take a PCR test. If the test is positive the same protocol applies as to all other persons who have tested positive.
Those who had been to the areas identified with high risk for the new variant in the 14 days before the new regulation came into force need to report by dialling the number 113. They will then be ordered to quarantine at home for 10 days.
According to the NIJZ, the new variant, first detected in South Africa and thought to be more infectious than those so far known, has not yet been detected in Slovenia.