Seven-day isolation after Covid no longer mandatory in Czechia from Thursday

A seven-day isolation after a positive Covid test will no longer be required as of Thursday, April 20. A Health Ministry decree canceling the obligation has been published in the Law Digest. Doctors and public health officials will still be able to order isolation in individual cases.

According to Health Ministry data, about 1,300 people tested positive for Covid last week. The number of new cases has been dropping since late February.

The conditions for isolation and quarantine have varied over the three years of the Covid pandemic. The first patients in March 2020 were isolated in hospitals. Later, people positive for Covid were isolated at home for 14 days and everyone that had been in contact with the infected was ordered to stay in quarantine.

Isolation was subsequently reduced to 10 and then seven days. The quarantine was canceled last February and there are now no automatic obligations for people in contact with the infected person, including household members.

"The level of individual risk will be assessed either by a general practitioner or by experts from regional public health offices. They can order individual isolation or other quarantine measures like in the case of other infectious diseases," Health Minister Vlastimil Válek said last week.

Health staff who work with people with weakened immune systems or the staff in inpatient social services facilities could be assessed more strictly, for example. Instead of isolation, however, they could also be ordered to wear a respirator. Most European countries have a similar approach. Slovakia has, for instance, already canceled its isolation requirement on March 20.

If someone violates an isolation order, it can in some cases be considered intentionally spreading a contagious disease, a criminal offense that can be punished with up to three years in prison. Covid, though, is no longer included among diseases that this law applies to. The current list includes cholera, plague, AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases, salmonellosis, SARS, diphtheria, and tuberculosis.