As previously announced by the Deputy Prime Minister and the Head of the Civil Protection Headquarters of the Republic of Croatia, Davor Božinović, the new governmental measures to combat the COVID-19 pandemic have been put into effective use from the early hours of May 28. The new set of measures reflect a more positive trend in the number of COVID-19 cases statewide as well as the increasing number of vaccinated residents, and allow for more freedom in several aspects of everyday life.
While indoor use of masks and the keeping of personal distance (at least 1,5 m outdoors and 2 m indoors) will remain in effect as they were previously, the new measures bring an increase to the maximum number of persons at public gatherings which are now capped at 100 (previously 25).
Moreover, from May 28, local restaurants will be able to open up their indoor seating areas, as most food-serving businesses are expected to open up their doors (if they hadn’t already) by June 1. Controversially, bars will not be able to serve their customers indoors, and will remain working with limited capacity, providing their services only at their terraces and in other outdoor areas. Both restaurants and bars will now be able to stay open until 23:00 o’clock (11 PM).
The next set of governmental COVID-19 measures are expected to be released around the middle of June and are presumed to instate the much-discussed ‘COVID-19 passports’ that will allow for easier border-crossing as well as the attendance of public events like festivals. Whether the COVID-19 passports will enable large-scale music festivals like Ultra Europe, whose prospects for July 2021 are yet to be announced, to take place the upcoming summer, is expected to crystallize in the coming weeks.
The vaccination efforts of the Croatian government have resulted in a positive results. So far, more than 1.7 million dosages of vaccination have been spent and more than 1.2 million residents (36.9 percent of adult population) have been vaccinated.