All COVID restrictions have been lifted in Slovenia

In response to a motion by the Health Ministry's coronavirus advisory group, the outgoing govt lifted all the rest of the Covid restrictions on Monday, repealing the primary decree guiding anti-Covid measures.

According to the Government Communications Office, the advisory board proposed that all limitations be lifted in favor of following the National Institute of Public Health's recommendations (NIJZ).

Mateja Logar, the leader of the group that advises the ministry on Covid-19 containment measures, proposed that the group be dissolved, and the minister Of health Janez Poklukar agreed.

Since the worst Omicron wave passed, restrictions have gradually been eased, with the only major measures remaining as mandatory face masks in health care places and mandatory hand sanitization.

According to Logar, infection prevention and management services in hospitals will now determine whether face masks are needed.

The first chair of the Covid advisory committee was Bojana Beovi of the Ljubljana infectious disease clinic. She was in charge of the outbreak from the start on March 12, 2020, until her co-worker Logar took over on March 1, 2021.

The majority of task force members remained, which include NIJZ director Milan Krek and the chiefs of the two organizations that analyze the large bulk of PCR tests, Tjaa Zohar Cretnik of the National Laboratory of Health, Environment, and Food and Miroslav Petrovec of the Institute of Microbiology and Immunology.

With the medical practitioners, a sociologist joined this team at the time.

The NIJZ's chief epidemiologist, Mario Fafangel, was designated to the group twice which he exited also twice. He stated that the group's decisions frequently contradicted the NIJZ epidemiological service's opinion, established guidelines, and standard epidemiological practices as he left for the second time.

"Now that you do have more information, you evaluate things differently than when you had to decide on a measure," Logar explained. She stated that the team had always taken decisions based on the findings of the experts and had no say in decision-makers eventually decisions.

In addition, the government today approved a report on a special govt project to promote Covid vaccination, particularly among people aged 50 and up, in order to safeguard the group and the health service. The ministry planned to offer special incentives to family medicine team members who vaccinated a certain portion of their patients.

However, because of the project's positive response, additional vaccination-boosting activities, such as Vaccination Days and mobile vaccination units, are being planned.