Slovenia becomes the first country in Europe to declare an end to its COVID-19 epidemic

After a long time, positive and hopeful news against the Coronavirus has arrived from Slovenia. The country has become the first in Europe to get rid of the deadly COVID-19. The same was announced by the Slovenian government late on Thursday. The country officially marked an end to its virus epidemic after the government authorities confirmed less than seven new cases each day for the past two weeks.

Prime Minister Janez Jansa said, "Today Slovenia has the best epidemic situation in Europe, which enables us to call off the general epidemic."
Slovenia, a country with a population of two million, has also opened its borders after declaring the end of the virus. The country shares its borders with Croatia, Austria, Italy and Hungary, and now people have started arriving in Slovenia from other European Union states.

The Slovenian PM told the parliament, “Slovenia has tamed the epidemic over the past two months... Today Slovenia has the best epidemiologic picture in Europe”.
The government also announced that people coming from the EU states no longer need to go into a quarantine period which was earlier mandatory for all (seven days). However, for those arriving in the country from non-EU states, a quarantine of at least 14 days is still mandatory, except for diplomats and those involved in transporting cargo. Also, a foreign citizen with signs of Coronavirus infection will not be allowed to enter the country.

Even though the lockdown in the country has ended, people are still required to follow general rules regarding the virus. This means, wearing masks even in indoor public spaces is a must and maintaining a distance of 1.5 m (5 ft) from one another is also mandatory. Also public gathering still remains banned in the mountainous country.

Not only this, from next week onwards, football and all other sports competitions would resume (from May 23). The government will also allow some shopping centres and hotels to reopen next week.

Slovenia had declared an epidemic on March 12 and had shut down its borders after the first case was recorded on March 4 in a person returning from Italy. As per data, the country till today (Friday) has 1465 positive cases and 103 people have lost their lives.