ZAGREB, 13 April, 2021 - Foreign tourists who generate at least one bed night in Zagreb can be tested for COVID-19 at 50% of the price and about 20 have already been tested over the weekend, the director of the Zagreb Tourist Board (TZGZ), Martina Bienenfeld, said on Tuesday.

TZGZ is the first regional tourist board in Croatia that has opened a testing station for foreign tourists as had previously been proposed by Tourism and Sports Minister Nikolina Brnjac.

Testing to be co-financed

In addition to opening the testing station, TZGZ has decided to cofinance testing that is conducted during weekends and public holidays, Bienenfeld told Hina.

TZGZ will cover half the cost of testing for tourists, she said, estimating that the greatest demand will be in the coming period and that that will depend on the percentage of inoculated tourists from the countries they are coming from, but also of employees in tourism and citizens themselves, and finally on the introduction of Digital Green Certificates at the EU level.

Testing during weekdays will be at the normal price and already about ten Zagreb hotels are providing testing services. Testing can also be conducted at Zagreb's airport.

Providing opportunity for tourists to extend their stay

"One of the important reasons why we decided to co-finance testing in the days noted is that this provides the opportunity for tourists to extend their stay in Zagreb, because they do not have to worry where and when they can be tested when returning to their countries and they can avoid quarantine," said Bienefeld.

All the necessary information regarding testing is available at www.infozagreb.hr/korona-virus in various languages, she said and added that the first tourists tested this way last weekend (10 and 11 April) were from Italy, Denmark, Germany and Albania.

Bienefeld said that since the beginning of the year until 11 April, almost 65,000 tourists had visited Zagreb and they generated 177,500 bed nights, which is about 47% of arrivals and 58% of bed nights generated in the comparable period in 2020.

Compared to the record 2019 year, that is about 27% and 37% of arrivals and bed nights respectively. 

For more about COVID-19 in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

ZAGREB, Dec 9, 2020 - The City of Zagreb has obtained 17,850 rapid antigen tests for its 60 social welfare institutions, the head of the Zagreb department for social policy, Romana Galic, said on Tuesday.

Of those 60 institutions, 41 are old age homes, and the remaining 19 are institutions for providing care to people with disabilities and other vulnerable groups of citizens, Galic said.

She explained that this had been the first batch of the rapid coronavirus tests which should be used in a period of one month, and the Zagreb authorities hope that they will be provided with additional quantities of those tests.

Testing of staff working in retirement homes and beneficiaries is a manner to prevent the spread of this virus in those institutions, she added.

Currently, there are 196 beneficiaries from 11 old-care homes in Zagreb who are positive for coronavirus. Of them, 22 are receiving hospital treatment, about 50 beneficiaries, who have contracted the virus, are without symptoms and others are with mild symptoms of the COVID-19 disease.

Also, currently, 75 employees from Zagreb's old-age homes are positive for the virus, and an additional 38 are self-isolating.

Galic said that about 75% of beneficiaries in Zagreb's social welfare institutions have said that they are willing to undergo testing, while 36% of the staff have expressed readiness. Also, a marked portion of the staff have recovered from the infection, she said.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 30th of November, 2020, today, rapid antigen tests will be conducted for the first time in Zagreb schools. The institutions in which the testing will be carried out will be both primary and secondary schools.

Iva Milardovic Stimac, assistant head of the Education Office of the City of Zagreb, said that the City of Zagreb wants to conduct a short preliminary or pilot study on the presence of coronavirus in Zagreb schools among students and staff. The testing will be conducted in fifteen schools.

"Today it is time to test in three Zagreb schools. 587 students and staff will be tested. Negative results won't seek to be further confirmed by a PCR test, and positive ones will need to go on to be confirmed again by a PCR test,'' said Milardovic Stimac in conversation with HRT.

“The City of Zagreb, in cooperation with the Dr. Andrija Stampar Institute and the Institute for Medical Research and Occupational Medicine, will conduct a preliminary study on the prevalence of coronavirus among students and employees of primary and secondary schools across the City of Zagreb.

Testing with rapid antigen tests will be conducted by employees of the Dr. Andrija Stampar Institute from November the 30th to December the 4th, 2020, in fifteen schools in the City of Zagreb. In each of these fiftee Zagreb schools, eight of them primary and seven of them secondary schools, 120 students will be tested with the prior consent of their parents, as well as 20 employees who will be chosen by random selection.

The aim of this testing is to obtain information on the presence of the virus in Zagreb schools on a representative sample, on the basis of which further epidemiological measures will be determined in the schools of the City of Zagreb,'' she wrote.

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