The Czech government met on Thursday evening to discuss possible tighter measures to combat the spread of the coronavirus.

The new measures come into force at midnight from Friday to Saturday. You can find them below:

Business trips

The cabinet has decided to tighten rules restricting the movement of people. Trips to own recreational facilities are still allowed. However, people can stay exclusively with members of their own families.

Accommodation services are allowed only for people on work trips. They need to produce a written confirmation from the employer or the customer confirming they are on a work trip and are not allowed to bring family members with them.

Free antigen tests

According to Blatný, the Czech government will try to give citizens at least one COVID-19 test for free every three days (now it every five days).

“We approved a reduction in the time between individual antigen tests, which are covered by health insurance. Commuters can be tested more often. In addition, this decision has the potential to reduce the virus load in the population.”

Voluntary public testing was originally scheduled to end on January 15 but was extended by the Ministry of Health until further notice.

Nearly 1.5 million antigen tests for Covid-19 have been conducted in the Czech Republic since November and the record high was hit on December 21 when 46,000 people got tested, according to data from the Health Ministry.

Ski lifts

“We have to apologize to the ski resorts because we have raised certain expectations from them in recent days,” said Minister of Industry Karel Havlíček. “The situation is not developing well, so lifts and cable cars will remain indefinitely closed to the public. However, the winter season is not definitely lost,” said Havlíček.

Respirators

“Respirators will not be mandatory and there will be no price cap,” said Havlíček.

The French government has mandated that citizens wear single-use surgical FFP1 masks, more protective FFP2 filtering facepiece respirators, or fabric masks in all public places.

It follows a decision by the German government on Tuesday requiring all people to wear either FFP1 or FFP2 masks while on public transport, in workplaces, and in shops. The move came after the German state of Bavaria introduced an even more stringent measure: enforcing surgical grade N95 respirators, which filter 95% of air particles, in stores and on public transport.

Austria introduced its own FFP2 mandate on public transport and in shops on January 25.