Coronavirus – Restrictions to be extended for another week

The government is extending restrictions on movement introduced to combat the novel coronavirus epidemic for another week from Saturday, the head of the Prime Minister’s Office has said.

The cabinet will continue to review the regulation at its Wednesday meetings before determining whether restrictions can be eased or need to be tightened, Gergely Gulyás told an online press briefing.

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The public will be updated on the status of the restrictions during the regular government press briefings on Thursdays, he added.

Local mayors have again been given special authority for this coming weekend to impose their own restrictions in their municipalities, Gulyás said.

He added that the government has so far spent 500 billion forints (EUR 1.4bn) on buying protective equipment and making other preparations in connection with the novel coronavirus epidemic.

The aim is to ensure that the country’s health-care system is able to cope with a massive increase in infections, Gergely Gulyás told an online press briefing, adding that this was the reason behind the instruction for hospitals to prepare a set number of beds for patients.

Gulyás said the government would only be able to account for the protective gear it has procured once the equipment is delivered. “It’s a dog-eat-dog world on the markets where these supplies are sold, so we can only account for what we receive,” he said.

Concerning education, he said school-leaving exams will start on May 4 and will for the most part comprise written tests only. Only students who require exam scores for their higher education applications will be eligible to sit the exams, Gulyás, said, adding that this concerned 83,000 students. The exam will be organised over a period of around two weeks, Gulyás said.

No more than ten students should take exams in the same classroom at any one time so that a distance of 1.5 metres can be maintained between them, he said.

Oral exams will only be organised for subjects for which written tests are not an option, Gulyás said, adding that a total of 3,178 students will be taking oral exams.

However, students also have the option of postponing their exams to the autumn, the PM’s Office chief said. He added, at the same time, that cancelling the exams altogether would have resulted in “a chaotic situation around the higher education application process that we cannot afford”.

Source: MTI