All schools and universities in Croatia to shut down

ZAGREB, 13 March 2020 – All classes in primary and secondary schools and at universities in Croatia will be suspended for two weeks, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic announced on Friday, 24sata reported. 

“Kids which parents are unable to look after will be able to turn up at school, but there will be no lessons,” the PM said. 

The same rule will apply to kindergartens around the country but the decisions will be made at a local level.  For a number of school students, lessons will continue online. 

Earlier in the week, the decision was made to shut schools and universities in the Istria region from today, now the whole country will follow suit.

As of Friday morning in Croatia, there were a total of 31 people who had tested positive for COVID-19, whilst 525 patients were waiting for test results to come back. 

The confirmed cases so far were reported in the cities of Zagreb, Pula, Umag, Poreč, Rijeka, Varazdin and Sisak. 

“We have no signs of local transmission of the virus, which is a good sign at the moment. We are monitoring the situation from hour to hour and we are ready to react with new measures if it gets worse,” said Minister of Health Vili Beros. 

This week, Croatian authorities announced that foreigners arriving from coronavirus hotspots would be placed into mandatory 14-day quarantine. Yesterday, the government announced it will introduce with immediate effect a compulsory 14 day period of self-isolation for all foreign nationals arriving from the following destinations: the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Austria, Netherlands, China, the Republic of Korea, Japan, and Singapore.

Foreign nationals who do not have a residence in Croatia will be asked for proof of an accommodation booking. 

Yesterday the Croatian Football Federation suspended all football leagues in the country.